


The Lovers' Circle

by iulia_linnea



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-26
Updated: 2012-10-26
Packaged: 2017-11-17 02:40:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 23,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/546737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iulia_linnea/pseuds/iulia_linnea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A trap is sprung, and Severus and Harry are forever changed by it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written between 5 April and 19 April 2005. Thank you, [lynntownsend](http://lynntownsend.livejournal.com/profile), for beta'ing.

"I'm sorry it has to be this way, dear boy, but I see no other choice. Harry is more terrified than I have ever seen him. Watching Lupin be torn apart seems to have shattered his last nerve."

"I doubt that. Potter is . . . understandably upset, but he will rally."

"Not before he must, I fear. Not before tonight. If he is to be of . . . any use to us, he must have his friends about him."

"Granger is here, well, and ready to get back to it. Let _her_ go with him."

"I shall, but Harry requires Ron's presence more than he does hers. That is why I would not permit anyone to tell him about the extent of the boy's injuries."

On an Auror mission the previous week, the three Gryffindors had been separated in a skirmish that had broken out between the Dark Lord's loyalists—not Death Eaters, but citizens who supported him—and Ron Weasley had almost been killed. Potter and Granger had been told that Ron was needed at the Ministry for Magic to assist the induction of new trainees, something they both easily believed, given the casualties the Auror Corps had suffered. In actuality, the young man was convalescing in a hidden hospital ward at Hogwarts. The war was everywhere in the Wizarding World, and the Order held its own, just, with Potter being sent to any place intelligence reported that its enemy was hiding. It was on one such mission, three days previously, that Remus Lupin had been destroyed, and Harry, who had seen more death than any twenty-year-old should ever have had to, had taken it very badly indeed.

"Lord Voldemort may not come. The report of his sighting in the Forbidden Forest is most likely another diversion—you should not send the boy out at all, Albus. . . . Let him rest."

The Headmaster, laying propped upon a great many pillows, sighed disconsolately. Only Snape knew how much pain the wizard was in, and that much of it was engendered by the man's feelings of futility and uselessness. It was difficult for Snape to see the wizard who had been his confessor, father, and friend wasting.

"You know that—"

"Yes, yes, I do," the Potions master interrupted the other man gently, moving to hand him a glass of Easing Elixir. _Not that it will provide him any comfort_.

"You will go?"

"Take the potion."

Albus drank, his lips shaking a bit, and Severus hastily wiped away all traces of the rivulets of it that ran down his chin.

"That was careless of me. I apologize," he said, hoping to give the man his dignity.

"You are never careless. I am weak. I am dying. I would like to see an end to matters before I do."

"I will go, if only to keep the brat alive," Severus said, harshly, though he felt no true hatred for Harry Potter any longer.

Such passion was best spent on the battle field or in dreams.

"You will be Ron for him?"

The wizard sighed. "Do you really believe that is necessary?"

"You know that I do."

"Very well."

"Good. Thank you, Severus. I . . . feel it is time to speak to you about—"

" _No_. Do not, Albus. You will not die tonight."

"I will attempt to li—"

The Potions master stood abruptly and moved to the door, unwilling to hear his friend's last words. He could not do it, not and leave. "I shall prepare. Rest, Albus. I will see you in the morning."

At midnight, Severus, charmed to appear as Ron Weasley, shook Harry's hand and accepted a hug from Hermione. He found that he was discomfitted by being on the receiving end of so much affection.

"Ron! We missed you. We thought—"

"Yeah, I know. Not in front of Po—Harry," he murmured into her ear.

"Oh, you're right," Hermione replied, casting a worried glance at Harry and stepping back.

"I'm right here, you two," the wizard snapped, but then remembered himself. "Sorry, it's—"

"Not necessary to apologize . . . mate. We'll talk later. Are you ready?"

"I've got the portkey."

"Well then, I suppose we should go. Do you want any Fire Bright Elixir, either of you?" Hermione asked. "I've brought some just in case."

Snape, knowing that the potion might interfere with the charm he had cast upon himself, declined. Harry looked at the proffered bottle and considered.

"No, best not—you know what Professor Snape's always saying about that stuff."

"Since when do you give a toss about what _he_ thinks?"

" _Ron_ ," Hermione warned.

"What?"

Harry snorted. "Right then, let's go."

They appeared in a clearing in the Forbidden Forest, an empty clearing.

"Great. Another diversion," Harry spat. "Damn it!"

"What's that?" "Ron" asked, pointing his wand at a pattern of sticks on the ground in the center of the clearing.

"Runes," the witch said, creeping closer to them.

"They're just _sticks_."

"Harry, be careful. They aren't just sticks. Look, that one's Kenaz."

"Kenaz?"

"You never studied," Ron said, shaking his head.

"And _you_ did?"

"Shut it, both of you. I'm trying to think."

Hermione walked clockwise around the outer perimeter, muttering to herself. "And that one's Wunjo. Hmm. Kenaz is the torch, fire—sometimes controlled, sometimes sexual and erratic, if _Roald Rorchester's Runic Configurations_ is to be believed—but that one's . . . . This is just _odd_ ," she said, completing her circuit and placing her hands on her hips.

"What's odd about it? It's a Lovers' Circle."

"Maybe you did study, Ron," Harry said. "What the hell's a Lovers' Circle?"

"'M'not really sure."

"Oh, honestly! A Lovers' Circle is made by two people who want to shag—or one person, to lure another one into a shag. Ron knows what one is because—"

"Hermione!"

"Well, _you_ brought it up, 'Mister-Don't-Say-Anything-About-This-To-Harry'."

Snape, unable to formulate a response, said nothing. _At least the blush will look like Weasley's_.

Harry grimaced at Ron and said to him, "Thanks for sharing. Right. Hermione said that the first rune's Kenaz, and the second, Wunjo, but what's the third one?"

"Odin's rune," his friends replied as one.

"But it's just four sticks forming a rectangle," Potter said. "What's it mean? And what's that smell?"

"I don't know," Hermione said before her boyfriend could answer. "It's sort of sweet."

Snape thought he recognized the smell as an aphrodisiac, but he knew that he could hardly admit this, no matter what Ron might know about Lovers' Circles.

"Yeah, sickly sweet," Harry agreed. "Why'd someone put it here?"

"Perhaps Hagrid's been entertaining a friend out here."

"That was rude, Ron," Hermione chastised. "He and Maxime are quite serious about one another, and well you know it. Besides, it's too far into the woods. I think it's a trap."

"Right. A trap. A sex trap in the Forbidden Forest. Hardly," Snape said, hoping that he had adequately approximated Weasley's youthful scorn.

"Maybe I should give you two some time alone," Harry offered.

"No!"

"Well, _thank_ you, Ron."

"This _is_ a mission. There . . . there must be a reason that it's here. Albus said—I mean, the Headmaster—"

"Getting inside information while at the Ministry, were you?"

"Hermione, Dad does talk to me about things, and the information was from a reliable source. Vol— _he_ —was supposed to be here," Snape said, unsure if the wizard whom he was pretending to be would still be using the Dark Lord's name after all that had transpired.

Harry looked at him, a quizzical expression on his features.

"What?"

"Oh, I missed these before. I'm not sure . . . oh, no. This _isn't_ a Lovers' Circle," Hermione said, sounding concerned.

"Why? What is it?" Harry asked.

"These little ones, they're—"

"Sowelus, aren't they?"

"Well, that's one interpretation, Ron, but they're also the Germanic sign for victory and death, among other things. They don't really belong in a Lovers' Circle—and these are _yew_ sticks."

"So they are," Snape said, beginning to understand the source of Hermione's concern. "Don't touch that, Po—"

Harry had been kneeling down and reaching for one of the glistening, disturbingly pungent yew sticks. Snape snatched the boy's hand away, but lost his balance and fell into the circle. He knew at once that it was a trap.

"Fuck!"

"Ron!" Hermione yelled, as a metaphysical barrier sprung up around the wizard.

Potter, Snape saw, rash idiot that he was, flung himself at it and was thrown across the clearing into a tree.

"What's happening?" Ron Weasley's frightened voice rolled thickly up out of his throat. " _Oh_."

Every fiber of his being was reverberating with an inexorable lust. He was burning. He needed. He looked up and saw Hermione's pained face staring at him through the ward, but he did not want _her_. Suddenly, Potter appeared, rubbing the back of his head with one hand and holding his wand with the other.

"YES!" he screamed. "YOU!" as he threw himself at the barrier and went through it.

The light of the magical field flickered out at once, and Snape picked himself up and flung himself at Harry, screaming inchoately. The witch cast " _Stupefy_!" repeatedly as "Ron" wrestled with her friend, but it had no effect on him. It did, however, annoy him, and he turned on the Auror with a growl. But a pair of hands grabbed his shoulders before he could attack her.

"It's _me_ you want. Me! Hermione, run!"

"I'm _not_ leaving you!" she yelled, trying other incantations.

Snape grinned ferally at the other wizard and was about to try for Hermione again when he saw the witch drop to the earth.

"Huh," he grunted, turning back to see Harry pointing his wand at him.

"Me, right? You want me, don't you, Ron?" the Auror asked, his expression resolved. "Right then, come and get me."

With that, the boy was off and running through the trees. Snape roared and went after him, the only thought in his mind being, _Take_! He had to have the boy, and he would. He ran, his wand and own mind forgotten, focused as he was on his purpose. _Take_!

Harry ran. He was horrified by the chaotic desire he had seen in his best friend's eyes for him, by the misplaced rage he had seen the wizard direct at Hermione, and knew that he had to get Ron as far away from the witch as possible. He hoped to lose him, to exhaust him, so that Ron would be easier to subdue. But as he kept running, and Ron kept chasing him, he began to think that he would have to let the other boy catch him. _And God, I don't want her to see whatever happens then_ , he thought, pulling in increasingly ragged and unproductive breaths into his abraded lungs.

Leaping over a felled tree, Harry came down too hard on his left ankle, rather than his foot, and howled in pain as he crashed down a small decline.

Ron was on him almost at once.

The taller, broader boy rolled Harry onto his back and covered him, kicking his legs apart and thrusting his erection into the captured boy's pelvis.

"Ron! Stop this! Sto—"

Harry's plea was stopped by Snape's mouth. He kissed the boy roughly, cutting Harry's gums with his teeth in his need.

_Take_! Severus thought, pulling at Harry's clothing and howling when he could not unfasten the buttons of the boy's trousers.

Harry was shaken. It should not have excited him, the feeling of Ron hard and hot against him, but it did. His mouth hurt, and he was being bruised, crushed, even, by the weight of the larger boy. Twin sensations of lust and fear warred within him as he struggled.

"Take," Ron said, breaking the kiss before biting Harry's throat.

Blood trickling down his neck, the smaller wizard yelped. "Ow! Ron, _please_. Ron please stop!"

"Take," Snape growled again, jerking Harry's head up by the hair and pushing himself up into a kneeling stance. When Harry began to struggle again, he knocked the boy on the head with his fist and thundered, "TAKE!"

Harry was dazed by the punch to his head, and could do nothing to prevent Ron from throwing him over his shoulder and carry him back the way they had come. _This isn't happening. Ron wouldn't do this. This isn't happening_ , he told himself, trying to shake off the sensation of stupefaction.

But it was happening, and quickly, too, as Ron threw him down inside of the quiescent "Lovers' Circle" and then moved away. Harry got up and tried to leave, but the ward rose again to trap him. It allowed Ron to enter, however, and the boy pointed his wand and uttered a spell that caused his prey's clothing to unfasten itself and fall away.

"Take," the wizard murmured, seemingly calmer now that his mate was better prepared to receive him. "Take," he said again, shucking his kit and reaching for Harry, who pressed his back into the stinging magic of the barrier and tried not to cower.

"Ron, it's _me_. It's _Harry_. You _don't_ want to do this. You—you're in love with Hermione!"In response, Ron leaned into Harry and bent his head down to inhale the scent of fear rising off of his skin. "Take," he said, and then he licked the trembling boy's neck.

"Oh . . . oh, _don't_."

But his friend did not heed his entreaty and continued to tongue the boy's trembling flesh.

" _No_ , I won't let you do this!" Harry cried, shoving Ron roughly away.

Snape growled again and rushed Potter, grabbing the Auror's neck in his hands and squeezing until Harry thought he would lose consciousness. Slowly, he slid to his knees, only then realizing that Ron, too, was nude as the wizard's purpling erection knocked against his face.

_He'll hurt me_ , Harry thought, eyes widening as they fell on Ron's cock. He had seen his friend naked on many occasions, but never like this, and the thought of the prodigious organ being shoved inside of him made him quail. So he did the only thing he could think of: he opened his mouth and took the demanding prick into his mouth, into his throat, and worked it with his frantic tongue, sucking hard.

Snape groaned and thrust, making mewling noises of appreciation.

_Take_ , Harry thought, clamping down on the desire that was coiling in his belly. That he should find pleasuring Ron, who had no idea what he was doing, erotic disgusted him. _I'll take it this way and he won't_ —

With a grunt, Snape pulled his cock out of Harry's mouth and turned the boy toward the ground, placing his hands on his slender hips and pulling him toward himself. "Take."

"Ungh, _no_ —Ron, no!" Harry begged, as he felt a burning pressure against the pucker of his ass. He clenched his internal muscles in an attempt to repel the invasion, and heard Ron groan in frustration. "Ron, please, please, plea—ease, don't do this," he said, as tears formed in his eyes.

Then, a thick, dry finger push itself inside of the tight ring of muscle guarding his entrance and thrust itself in and out of his hole.

"Take," Ron said almost gently, laying himself over Harry's back and rubbing his cheeks over the boy's back and neck and hair as if to mark him while his relentless digit gradually widened Harry's passage.

Another finger entered him, and Harry shrieked in panic, hating himself for it. Ron _is going to rape me. Ron_ is _raping me_ , he thought, shaking his head to keep his tears, for he was sobbing now, from sliding into his nose. "No, no, no," he pleaded, knowing that it was futile to beg, but unable to stop himself.

"Take," Severus answered, adding a third finger, and then a fourth, and reveling in the heat he felt inside of the subdued boy's body.

Harry barked out a sharp cry of unwelcome excitement when he felt Ron's fourth finger enter him, for it rubbed over _the_ _spot_ , the spot he could never reach himself, and the other boy uttered a lascivious laugh, forcing each thrust of his fingers to slide over the same rough patch of hidden skin.

But Harry did not wish to feel anything good from Ron's assault, so he bucked and struggled and kicked. Ron's response was to withdraw his fingers and seize Harry by the hair, pulling the boy up onto his knees, his back against his chest.

"You're hurting me!"

Ron laughed. "Take . . . take . . . take," he said, in between administering bites to Harry's neck. Then, pushing Harry's thighs apart with one knee and releasing his hair in favor of grabbing his hips, the stronger boy pressed his erection to Harry's entrance and breached it with a single rough thrust. "Ungh!" he grunted, pushing in again, pulling back almost all the way out, and slamming back inside, digging his fingers deeply into the boy's flesh in an effort to keep him still.

Harry could not draw breath. He stopped struggling and took it, his mind screaming in pain and mortification and terror. _This is Ron_ , he thought. _Ron, my best friend. Oh,_ God _. Not like this. I never wanted him like this. Oh, he'll . . . hate . . . himself. Oh, God. Oh, no. Oh—_ "Fuck!" he screamed, as Ron's cock hit that spot again. "No! I _won't_ ," he cried, "I won't enj—OH!"

It was good. That was the most devastating thing about being fucked—raped—by his best friend. It was _good_ , and Harry could not prevent himself from responding to the increasingly slick thrusts of Ron's prick in and out of his body. He was moaning—with desire as well as fear—and he could not stop it. He was not sure, as his balls began to tighten, that he _wanted_ Ron to stop. Another hard thrust, and he _knew_.

"God! Please! Ron, please. More. PleaseGodRondon'tstopgivememoremore _more_ —MORE!" he roared, when Ron pushed him down onto all fours and rammed into him so deeply that Harry almost blacked out. 

And then he was howling through the shame of his orgasm as Ron's relentless thrusts, spurred on by the tightening of his muscles around the boy's prick, sped up and became erratic before Harry felt a hot slickness spurt inside of him.

"Taketaketake _taketake_ TAKE!" Ron screamed, coming and then collapsing.

He laid there, chest heaving out hot breaths onto Harry's neck, as the magic of the circle sputtered and dispersed. 

The first thing Severus heard when he came back to himself was Potter's quiet sobbing, through which he could discern some sort of broken litany: "It . . . wasn't you, it wasn't . . . you . . . wasn't _you_ . . . ."

"Oh. My. God. . . . What did I—Harry—what did I _do_?" he asked, though it was perfectly clear to him what he had done.

His eyes burning, he carefully pulled himself out of Potter and gathered the boy up into his arms to cradle him against his chest. To his great shame, Harry clung to him as if to a rescuer.

"Ron, it wasn't you. You didn't mean to. It wasn't—"

"Shh," Snape soothed. "I'm sorry. I—shh—it will be all right. It's over. _God_ , I didn't mean to do it, Harry. I'm _sorry_ ," the wizard said, stroking the boy's sweat-dampened hair and feeling filthier than he had ever felt before, even as the afterglow of his orgasm infused him with the sensation of sated languor. _What have I done_? _How will I explain—oh, God_! _He thinks Weasley did this to him_!

The fact that all Potter seemed to care about was soothing him—Ron—made the situation that much more terrible for Severus, who had never taken someone as roughly, never _raped_ , anyone before. 

Harry untangled himself from Ron's body and looked up into his pain-filled eyes. "Ron, I . . . I know you are. I _know_ ," he said, fiercely. "I don't blame you, but—oh," he groaned.

"What? What is it? Christ, I _hurt_ you!"

"Wasn't you," Harry repeated, gingerly attempting to stand.

Severus rose quickly and helped the Auror to his feet. He could see the blood trickling down his thighs, and the sight made bile rise in his throat. "Here, let me get my wand—I'll heal you."

"No, find mine—please," the boy almost pleaded.

"Yes. _Anything_. Wait, I'll find—here! Here it is," Severus said, handing the wand to the battered boy and opening his mouth to speak again. 

But Harry pointed his wand at him before he could utter a sound. " _Obliviate_!" Harry cast, his eyes bright and calm. Suddenly, he felt a hand on his arm. _Hermione_ , he thought, shuddering with an emotion he could not name. _I'll have to_ —

"I know what you're thinking, Harry James Potter, and you _will not do it_ ," the witch said as he turned, reaching out to take his wand from his suddenly nerveless fingers. "You don't know any healing charms," she continued gently, moving to support him as he slid bonelessly to the ground. "Let me help you."

When he made no protest, Hermione went away for a moment to collect his clothing, and returned to lay his robe over him.

"It wasn't a Lo—a Lovers' Circle."

"No," she replied, her face grim, as she carefully examined his wounds. "It wasn't."

"I had to, Hermione. I couldn't let Ron know—"

"I know that, Harry. It's all right. Let me see to Ron, so that I can help you without his being aware of it, all right? Is that okay?"

Harry nodded.

When the witch came back, the first thing she did was to cast a series of healing charms, but not before she had asked Harry for his permission to perform each one. In fact, nothing she did to help him she did without first asking if it was acceptable to him.

"Why are you asking me about everything?"

"Because you've been attacked, Harry," she said, keeping her voice neutral. "You need to know that you have control, now. Does it bother you? I won't ask if—"

"No, go ahead," he replied tonelessly. "Why can't I . . . feel anything?"

Blinking rapidly, Hermione took a moment to collect herself before she responded. "You've had a shock, Harry. It makes it hard to feel."

"A shock."

"Yes, a shock. Are you in any pain now?"

He shook his head.

"Good. All right, would you like me to help you dress?"

"Sure."

After dressing Harry, Hermione went to Ron and examined him for any sign of injury. Finding none, she returned to her stunned friend's side, and sat with him silently.

"I'm cold."

Hermione cast a warming charm.

"What are we going to tell Ron?"

"I told him that the circle exploded and knocked him out. You didn't hear—oh, well, he's sleeping now. I told him he had to rest. He never has to know, Harry. I swear I'll never tell him, all right?"

"All . . . all right."

"Shall we get you home, then?"

It occurred to the young man then that his friend seemed to know exactly what to do, but not in a way that indicated she had studied about it. "Hermione, wh—when?" he asked, his voice breaking in sadness. "Not you. Not you, too."

"Yes, me," she whispered. "You don't need to worry about it, Har—"

"I want to know. If . . . if you can," he said, his eyes clearing a little as he turned to look at her for the first time since she had relieved him of his wand.

"I love you, Harry," Hermione said then, drawing the wizard to her and hugging him. "You don't have to think of me right now, really, you _don't_."

"Don't want to think about _me_ ," he said, his voice thick with emotion. "Can't."

"All right. But I . . . don't want to tell you who it was. I don't think that would be a good idea. Promise me you won't ask," she said, pulling away.

"I'll kill him. _That's_ what I'll promise you," Harry replied, with a ghost of vehemence.

"That's exactly why I'm not going to tell you his name," she said, in a patient tone. "It was a long time ago, and I've . . . made peace with it."

"I won't kill him tonight."

Hermione sighed. "Maybe this isn't a such a good idea."

"I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"Everything. You. Me. Ron. . . . Who was it?"

"Harry."

"Did you tell anyone?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because I did what you did, so there wasn't a point to telling anyone."

Harry closed his eyes. "Fuck."

"I didn't want anyone . . . I didn't want _him_ to look at me and know what he'd done."

"Fuck," Harry said, again. "Malfoy."

Hermione said nothing, but Harry felt her body, which was leaning into his, stiffen. He uttered an ugly laugh. "That's all right then."

" _What_?"

"I get to kill him, anyway."

"Make it hurt."

" _Promise_."

They sat there for awhile, both of them lost in thought, and neither of them feeling prepared to face Ron.

"Ron," meanwhile, was laying a short distance away, eyes closed, listening to the silence of the two Gryffindors. The Obliviatus Charm was a spell that required careful application; without specific instruction as to _what_ to forget—or to remember, as the case sometimes was, for memories could be inserted into one's mind if necessary—the subject could be left, as Gilderoy Lockhart had been, with no knowledge of who he or she was. In the case of Snape, who was enchanted to appear as Ron Weasley, when Hermione had explained to _her boyfriend_ that he had suffered an explosion, the charm went awry. Snape was not Ron, and, therefore, the spell did not work upon him. Severus had permitted himself to appear to accept the witch's instruction to sleep, for he could not yet face what he had done. 

_I raped Harry Potter_ , he thought, remembering every moment of the attack—the attack that he had enjoyed committing—and wishing he were dead. There was no way he could ever forgive himself for what he had done, no way he could explain himself, and he felt as though his heart, though he loathed to think along such lines, was breaking. _I'm not a wizard, not a man, not a head of house. How could I have been so careless_? _If Albus thought Harry was going to be useless after seeing Lupin die_. . . .

He hoped he would have the opportunity to murder Draco Malfoy before Potter did. The boy should not have _that_ killing on his conscience, or any other, he knew. He wished he understood why Granger's kindness to him in treating his injuries—even though he knew that she believed he was her boyfriend—had hurt so much to accept. He bit back a sigh as the memory of the pleasure he had taken in violating Harry's body rose in his mind. He regretted that he had not been successfully Obliviated.

At last, Hermione turned to Harry and said, "I think we'd best get back, now. They'll be wondering . . . ."

"I'm afraid."

Severus thought he might be physically sick as he heard the bereft quality of the boy's voice.

"Of what?"

"That he'll find out. That . . . that he'll try ag—"

"It was the spell, Harry. Ron won't hurt you again. It was a trap, and it caught you—both of you—but it's been sprung. It will _never_ happen again."

"And he won't know?"

"Won't know what?" Severus asked, unable to lie still a moment longer.

He wanted his wand. The Obliviatus Charm seemed like a good idea.

_If only I could cast it upon myself_. . . .

"Well, it's about time, you sleepyhead," Hermione replied, her voice a strained sound of forced cheerfulness. "That was quite a knock you took, Ron. Are you all right?" she asked, moving to stand between Harry and the other wizard.

_Giving him time to collect himself_ , Severus thought, feeling a swell of gratitude for the witch. "Was it?" he replied, rubbing the back of his head. "Guess so. Feel kind of . . . hey, Harry?" he made himself ask. "You all right, mate?"

"Yeah, Ron. All right. Just a bit . . . ."

"Sure. Well, should we get back to Headquarters and make our report? If . . . if you're still a bit, I mean, Hermione and I could do it— _I_ could do it."

"That's . . . a good idea, Ron. Harry got . . . he took more of the—"

"Blast," the wizard finished for her. "Sure, and I slept. You didn't, did you?" he asked, directing the question at Harry without looking at him.

"No, he didn't," Hermione answered. "Are you up to Apparation? You could go straight there if you are."

_Thank you_ , Severus thought. "Yeah, I'll do that. Um," he said, hesitating. _Would he kiss her goodnight_?

The witch solved this problem by closing the distance between them and laying her warm lips against his cold cheek, and then saying to him as she pressed his wand into one hand, "Good night. See you tomorrow?"

"Uh, no, actually. I've got to go back to the Ministry tomorrow. More recruiting stuff."

He decided not to Obliviate anyone. He did not feel up to doing so.

"Oh, well, I'll fire-call you tomorrow night, then."

"Um . . . ."

"Right. You send word when you can. I'll just get Harry back to Hogwarts before I return to the novitiate. Love you."

Snape shivered with guilt. "Lo—ve you," he lied, Disapparating at once. After making his report to Kingsley Shacklebolt, he went directly to Hogwarts. Alone in his chambers, his first act was to take a near-scalding shower; his second, to imbibe an irresponsible dose of Dreamless Sleep Potion.

He forgot completely about the need to check in on Albus.


	2. Chapter 2

Harry stepped out of his near-scalding shower and sank to the floor of the bathroom. He was not staying at the novitiate in Hogsmeade with the other newly graduated Aurors because of his status; Dumbledore had wanted to keep him safe at the school.

"Safe," he muttered, drawing his knees up against his chest and hugging himself. " _Take_ ," he remembered, burning with shame as he thought of how Ron had felt inside of him. He did not understand how his pain had turned to . . . . _No. Don't think about it. It wasn't him_. "It wasn't."

Harry sat on the floor all night and got no sleep at all.

As dawn was rising, the Auror picked himself up and went to the Headmaster's chambers. He knew that man did not have much time left to live, and had made a habit—as had Snape—of visiting him before bed.

Albus was awake when he entered his bedchamber.

"Ah, you're . . . ."

"What?" Harry asked, as the man's greeting trailed off into silence. "Are you all right?"

"Oh, dear boy. I do not know what to say."

The wound that was Harry's memory of his rape bled into his consciousness as he realized that the old wizard had easily seen everything, and he tried unsuccessfully to staunch his threatening tears.

Albus raised quivering arms, and Harry fell into them, clutching the man who had been like a father to him as if he could make it all go away.

"I wish that I could, Harry. Oh, I am so very sorry."

Harry felt the wizard's fingers card through his hair slowly, but, as his sobs faded, he realized that the man's hands had stopped soothing him, that his breathing had become shallow. "Are you okay? Should I get Mada—"

"Listen, Harry. It's . . . time," Albus wheezed. "You must . . . tell Severus . . . tell him . . . ."

"Yes. _Anything_. I'll tell him whatever you want, Sir."

"Sons, you both . . . . Yes, like sons to me. Proud. Be happy. Don't . . . no shame. Love," the Headmaster said, his mouth suddenly slackening as he fell back against his pillows.

Harry knew that Albus Dumbledore was dead, but he had no tears left to cry for him. As if watching from outside of himself, he saw that he rose and placed the man's hands over his chest. He carefully pulled down the man's eyelids over his lifeless orbs. And then he slowly walked out of the room and to the Infirmary to summon Poppy.

_That's right. She said I could call her that_ , he told himself sometime later, while watching the stoic nurse tend to the Headmaster. He had no memory of returning to the room. "You need to help him," he said, not really knowing why. 

"Oh, oh, my dear. Albus is beyond help, now," the witch said, gently taking Harry by the hand and leading him to the wizard's office. "Sit here. I'm going to get someone to stay with you."

_Sit here_ , the young man thought. _She's going to get someone to stay with me_.

The next thing Harry knew, he was in the Infirmary, and Severus Snape, looking as harsh and autocratic as ever, was sitting next to him in a chair beside the cot upon which he was lying. "He's dead, isn't he?"

"You were there, Potter, so I was told."

"Fucking bloodless bastard."

A vein throbbed in the Potions master's jaw, but Harry did not see this.

"Glasses."

"Wait," Snape said, and then he handed them over.

It struck the Auror as odd that the man had been holding them, but he did not speak of it. "What happens now?"

"A funeral, Potter."

"I _know_ that. I mean—"

"You should not—do not concern yourself, boy. I am aware of your . . . injuries from last night's mission. You need to rest," the man said, standing.

"Don't tell me what I need, Snape."

"Mr. Potter, you may no longer be a student here, but you would do well to remember—" _that I am a dangerous man_ , he thought, inwardly cringing at his unfinished threat. _I can't do this. I cannot_ — "What. Did. He. Say. To. You?" he ground out, not knowing what else to say, and not wishing to argue with the boy.

"What?" Harry spat, throwing his shapely legs over the side of the bed and standing up.

Severus turned and rushed to a nearby basin, retching into it and hating himself for noticing Potter's charms at such a time. _Sick. I am a sick bastard. God_!

"Professor Snape? Are you . . . here," Harry said, handing the man a towel. "Sorry, I—"

"Do not apologize to me!"

"Fine," Harry said, backing away and looking, Snape was horrified to note, a bit frightened.

Severus grabbed the towel, wiped his mouth, and said, "Do not . . . do not trouble yourself. Forgive my outburst. The shock," he said, feeling like a fool.

"I miss him, too."

_I do not deserve your pity_. "Yes, we all . . . miss him. Get back into bed."

It was a plea. He needed to see less of the boy's body. He needed to not see the worry in Potter's haunted eyes.

Confused, the Auror went back to his cot and sat down, watching the Potions master with wide green eyes, and waiting.

"What is it that you want me to say?"

"Nothing. I . . . I guess you want to know what he said, right?"

"Yes."

"Sit—please—it's hard to talk with you looming like that."

Severus moved to the chair with all due speed, surprising Potter.

Harry slid himself back under the covers and leaned up against the headboard.

_He is so young. So_. . . .

After a moment, Harry told him what Albus' last words had been, how he had sounded, what he had looked like, and the Potions master felt himself becoming nauseated once more. 

_I will not be ill, and I will not cry_! he ordered himself, stiffening and glaring at Potter, though he was actually not looking at anything. _Love. Pride—I deserve neither_. 

The guilt washed over him afresh, and he rose to leave, but Harry stopped him.

"It's my fault, Sir."

"What?"

"The Headmaster's dying," the boy said, one tear rolling down his stricken face.

Severus sat down again heavily. _He told him_. The knowledge was too much to bear.

"On the mission . . . something happened."

"And you told him," Snape said accusingly and coldly.

"N—no, I didn't, but . . . he _knew_. He just knew. I never would have said _anything_ to upset him, but—"

Knowing that Harry had not revealed his hateful act willingly made Severus immediately penitent. "Potter," he said hoarsely, "you are not—whatever went . . . wrong—during your mission . . . . You can hardly be blamed for the Headmaster discovering it. His skills in Legilimancy far outstrip—outstripped—your own."

Harry chuckled humorlessly. "Only you could try to comfort someone by insulting them."

"It was not my intention to—"

"Leave it. Just tell me what happens now," Harry replied hollowly.

"Now you rest, and . . . forgive yourself for whatever it is you believe you did wrong last night. I am certain that it was not your fault, Harry."

"You called me Harry."

"Forgive me. I should not—"

"No, it's all right. I . . . don't mind. It was just a surprise."

"Grief."

"Yeah, I mean, of course. . . . It seemed very important to him, Professor, that you knew he thought of you as a son."

"And you as well, apparently."

"I suppose that makes us . . . brothers."

"It most certainly does not!" Severus almost yelled, abruptly quitting the room.

He was ill as soon as he entered the corridor.

_Oh, dear God. He . . . . No_!

It was bad, worse than he imagined it would be, to see Potter. And now it seemed that the boy was looking to forge a bond in grief with him when—

"FUCK!" Severus yelled, forgetting a cleaning spell and returning to his chambers.

_To hell with plans and funerals and pity_ , he raged in his mind. "I will not permit him to befriend me!"

The man knocked back a Scotch and then began pacing his rooms, staring at nothing. It was very early in the morning, and McGonagall was efficiently dealing with the matter of Albus' death. _He_ was supposed to be coordinating Order matters with Arthur Weasley and Kingsley Shacklebolt later that afternoon, but he could not think of that, any of it, though one thing in particular rose in his mind: Harry's frightened face.

"Fuck," he whispered, remembering how often that face had risen in his dreams since the boy had left the school—before it, truly, if he were to be honest with himself.

Severus had felt Potter's eyes on him beginning in the middle of the boy's seventh year and had ignored it. His prick had not, but that was a private matter for his hand to deal with, and so it had, sometimes both of them, for months before Harry had left to train as an Auror. He _fancied_ the boy. It was disgusting. And, in light of recent events, it was an obscenity—for there was no way he could act on his feelings now.

He was certain he could keep Potter at arm's length, no matter the connection that Harry apparently felt laid between them because of the Headmaster's death-bed declaration. "Brothers," the boy—the young wiz—the _man_ had said they were. _And the way he looked at me, as if he wanted me to comfort him_. . . .

Thank God Granger had been present. Severus had no idea what he would have done if she had not been.

An awful thought suddenly occurred to him: _I still have Weasley's wand. I'll need to return the damn thing to him_.

He had taken the wand before the mission because it would have looked quite unusual for "Ron" to have wielded _Snape's_ wand. Arthur Weasley knew, of course, about his son's condition, but now that Albus was dead, and there was to be a funeral . . . .

"They'll know. They'll find out. He'll—"

A knock interrupted him.

"GO AWAY!"

The door slammed open. "No. I don't think I will," Ron Weasley, looking like Death himself and standing with the assistance of a cane on the threshold, said. "My dad told me that you had my wand, that you needed it for a mission," the young man—Severus could no longer think of Ron as a boy, not when he was half a head taller and twice as broad as he, himself, was—continued. " _What_ mission?"

"Mr. Weasley, it's certainly good to see that you're well enough to be intruding upon former professors. Come in." _Fuck_.

The wizard did so, favoring his left leg. He walked toward the Potions master and glared down at him. 

"When I spoke to Hermione earlier, she said something about an explosion and asked after my head. She said a lot of things, actually, none of which made any sense."

"Oh?"

"She said more than she meant to, really. I told her, 'that's not how I remember last night', meaning, of course, that I didn't remember _anything_ because I was still in a healing trance. Imagine my surprise when she started _begging_ me not to tell Harry I remembered."

Snape swallowed.

"What is it, _Professor_ , that I _remember_? What. Happened. To. Harry? What did _I_ do to him? Dad told me it was _you_ who went along last night," Ron accused.

Severus was relieved that the wounded Auror did _not_ have his wand. "Sit down, Mr. Weasley," he said quietly. "We have . . . much to discuss."

Madam Pomfrey did not ask any questions when he dragged himself to the Infirmary a little over an hour later with a broken arm and nose and shattered knee. She closed her eyes, opened them, sat him in a chair, and then set about healing him in her efficient manner.

Weasley was still there when Snape returned to his chambers.

"Sorry to make you late for your meeting," the young man said, though he sounded nothing like apologetic. "A curse. No control. Is that right?"

"Yes," Severus replied through clenched teeth.

He was not angry. In fact, the thrashing Ron had given him had helped.

"That's what Hermione said. Sit," he ordered, and evinced no surprise when the Potions master did so. "What the hell do we do now? I can't have Harry thinking that I . . . ."

"Squeamish _now_ , are we?" Snape shot out before he could stop himself.

"Not by half. It's just hard to think about."

_That_ is _being squeamish_ , Severus thought, though he refrained from voicing it. "I quite agree."

"He's broken up about Dumbledore. This isn't a good time—"

"There will _never_ be a good time to tell Harry that I raped him, Weasley."

Ron's eyes narrowed in anguish and anger, but he said nothing.

"I suggest we—I—get it over with."

"No, you had it right the first time. _We_ will go to him together."

Severus covered his face with a hand and leaned back into the chair. He heard Ron speak, and this time, his voice was free of its earlier hardness.

"I wasn't your fault, you know. It wasn't you, either. It was the spell."

"I cannot tell you how sorry I am."

"No, you have to tell Harry. Fuck. I can't believe this happened."

_Neither can I_.

Inexplicably, the Auror said, "Whatever happens—after—you have to swear to me that you won't try and get yourself killed."

"Why the fuck not?" Snape asked, not caring how he sounded any longer.

"That's not for me to say. Just swear it. Because if you don't, I'll save us all some time and trouble and do it now."

_I believe that you would_.

"Believe me. I would."

Severus started, wondering how the young man had read his mind, and then cursed himself and his nerves for his own idiocy. "Of course. What else would I have been thinking? Fine. I will not."

"You 'will not', what?"

_Suspicious, literal, relentless bastard_. "I will not try to kill myself."

"Good," Ron said, thinking, _Because it would be too much for Harry if you did_. The wizard well understood how much his friend . . . regarded Snape, though he had no great admiration for Harry's taste. "I'll be in touch."

At Albus' funeral, Severus watched how Ron's face darkened when he accidentally brushed against Harry's body and the other boy flinched, and he felt a fresh burst of self-loathing. He thought he would never be clean again, or free of the shame of that night. Harry's face, Harry's cries, and Harry's fear, tormented his dreams—when he was not remembering the pleasure he had taken in them at the time. He knew that Weasley would come to him soon, and dreaded it, though he was able to shove the emotion to the back of his mind so that he could function. There was _still_ a war to fight. In charge of the Order now, however, he made certain to keep Potter out of it—or he tried to, for a time.

Quite by accident, while Potter was off on one of the increasingly long flying jaunts he had taken to indulging in, the boy discovered where Lord Voldemort had been keeping himself. In his outrage at finding the Dark Lord holed up in the cottage at Godric's Hollow, Harry braved the evil wizard's guards and his wrath and slew them all.

"—and then Pettigrew begged me to kill him, as well," the Auror said before the Wizengamot on a chill December morning about a week after the rather anti-climactic event.

"And did you?" one of the minor judges asked dispassionately.

"Yes."

Snape stood behind Harry with a guard of Aurors that had nothing to do with honor. There were Death Eaters aplenty yet living, and the Deputy Headmaster of Hogwarts and leader of the Order would be damned before he would allow any of them to harm the hero of the hour. He refused to permit any of the journalistic throng outside of the chamber speak to Harry, either, and whisked him away from his well-wishers as soon as the proceedings had ended.

Ron Weasley spent a great deal of time explaining his friend's story to the press, with his fiancée at his side. The young man seemed a great deal older to Snape when he was handling the reporters, and he felt grateful to him for shielding Potter in his capable way.

_And it keeps him from coming to me, as I know he will_ , the wizard thought, sitting in his new office at the school and pretending to look at paperwork. _It also keeps him away from the friend who is afraid of him_.

Severus sighed. Potter had taken to his rooms and remained there ever since the arranged display before the Wizengamot, undertaken as the surest way to prove the Dark Lord's death, as there had been no witnesses to it. The house elves took the boy food, and sometimes returned to the kitchens with empty trays, but, more often than not, Potter ate nothing. Minerva—and many others besides—had attempted to coax him out of his imposed isolation, but he had refused to talk to them. The only person who had seen Harry was Hermione Granger, and she, just the once.

Snape was worried, but did not know what to do. For him to attempt to comfort Potter seemed a ridiculous idea. _And I am too busy in any case_ , he told himself. "Coward."

"I wouldn't say that," a soft voice spoke in front of him.

The Potions master jerked his head up in surprise. So lost in his thoughts had he become that he had failed to hear Potter enter his office. The boy looked upon him with an uncertain gaze that made Severus hate himself still more.

"Auror Potter," he said, formally inclining his head a fraction.

"Deputy Headmaster Snape."

"I would say that it is good to see you well, but you appear somewhat the worse for wear. Have you been feeding yourself enough? No, of course not. I'll call for some luncheon."

"Wait, please," Harry said, taking a chair. "I want . . . I'm ready . . . that is, I'd like to get back into the field, Sir."

"Request denied."

"Why?" the boy demanded, the ghost of anger coloring his tone.

"Clearly, you are unfit to return to duty, Potter. You have been neglecting yourself. I will not be responsible for your—"

"Hermione says that they've found Malfoy," Harry interrupted stoically, "and I want him."

"You've seen fit to admit someone into your inner sanctum. I suppose that _is_ progress, of a sort. Nevertheless, you may not return to duty."

He knew very well that reports of Draco Malfoy's location had been sent in, and had made plans to join the next raiding party. It almost amused him that Harry Potter, slayer of Voldemort and celebrated hero, had come to ask for permission to kill the boy.

"You don't understand, Sir. I _have_ to be the one who . . . ."

"'Who', _what_ , Potter? Surely the childish rivalry between you and Mr. Malfoy does not extend so far that you think yourself the only one who ought to . . . apprehend him," Severus said harshly, falling back into his old pattern of behavior toward the boy in desperation.

He was being cruel, and he hated himself for that, too.

"I can't tell you why. I just have to—"

"No, you do not," the wizard said, allowing himself to glare. "Now take—"

He stopped speaking as soon as the word escaped his mouth at Potter's flinch, and damned himself for a fool. He had never so thoroughly and carelessly exposed himself before.

Harry looked at him, stunned, and said, "How?"

Forcing himself not to drop his gaze, Severus asked in a hoarse, fearful voice, "'How'?"

"How do you know?"

"Mr. Potter, I do not know what you are talking about," the man responded, looking his mind against the immediate sensation of intrusion.

"You do know. You're blocking me. You know."

"I 'block' everyone, Mr. Potter, as I attempted some time ago to teach you to do. Now, if you will excuse me, I have—"

Harry rose and walked slowly toward Snape, his mind recoiling from the memories that had been plaguing him for weeks, bent on making the wizard tell him what he knew. He pulled his wand, and found that the Potions master had already stood and drawn his by the time he leveled it on the man.

"Potter, you are overset. Put that thing away and be reasonable."

" _Snape_ , you're lying to me. You know. I want you to tell me how."

"Fuck," Severus said, lowering his wand and setting it on the desk. " _Fuck_."

Harry kept his wand trained on the Potions master and waited.

"I did not wish for you to find out like this." _I did not wish for you to find out, at all_.

When the other wizard did not say anything for several long, torturous moments, Snape blurted out, "It was not _Ron_."

"Christ!" Harry spat. "I _know_ that, you bastard! How do _you_?"

It took every ounce of courage that Severus possessed to admit the truth: "Because it was I who raped you, Harry."

It made the Potions master irrationally furious to see the boy drop his wand and choke out a near-hysterical laugh at his words.

"You're . . . _insane_. You . . . it _couldn't_ have been you. _What_ are you saying? _Why_?"

_Fuck_. "It was. I was there . . . that night. I was on the mission in Weasley's form at Albus' request because he had been wounded too badly to join you and Miss Granger."

"No, Ron was at the Min—"

"You have only to apply to Mr. Weasley to learn the truth. It was not Ron, Harry. It was I. _I_ fell into the Lovers' Circle. _I_ lost control. _I_ chased you through the Forbidden Forest. _I_ caught you and dragged you back. I _raped_ you." I _took pleasure in it_. "I am so . . . _very_ sorry, but it is the _truth_. It was _I_ , Harry," Severus concluded, walking around his desk to stand before the boy without thinking about it, for he seemed so incredibly vulnerable, and all the wizard wanted in that moment was to ease his pain.

"You 'took pleasure in it', you said."

"No, I _thought_ that, but it . . . it is true, as well. I cannot—"

He stopped speaking as he felt the tip of Potter's wand press into his chest. The Auror had levitated it wordlessly into his hand and stood glaring up at Snape with the glimmer of madness radiating from his eyes.

"Tell me where Draco is," Harry hissed, his mind reeling, his blood rushing, and his heart breaking. _It wasn't Ron. It was Severus. Severus, who I_. . . .

"You needn't keep your promise, Harry. She will forgive you, and to become a murderer," Severus said gently, raising a hand toward Potter's face.

Harry snatch the hand and pushed it away with his free hand and spat, "I'm already a _murderer_ , Snape. And I'll be one again—of you or Malfoy, I don't care whom!" _Make it Malfoy, make it Malfoy, make it Malfoy_ , he silently pleaded in a desolate litany.

"I'll tell you if you permit me to accompany you," Severus said, praying that Harry would accept the condition.

Seven hours later, Draco Magnus Malfoy was dead at their feet, as were four other Death Eaters who had fled to France in hopes of escaping their lord's fate.

Harry stood over Draco's bloody, mangled body and tried to catch his breath. He had not used magic to kill the other boy, but had stabbed him with his wand repeatedly before beating his corpse beyond recognition. His anger was spent. His mind, empty, and, as he slowly returned to himself, all he could do was shake in fear at the monster he had become. He did not protest when Snape gathered him to his chest and held him.

"Oh, God. Oh, God, Severus—he looks like Re—mus," the boy said brokenly, beginning to sob hysterically.

Severus clasped Harry more tightly against him and placed furtive kisses in his hair.

"It . . . was me. I did that to him—looks like . . . Remus—it was _me_."

" _No_ , Harry. It was _not_ you. It was your _rage_. It wasn't _you_ ," the Potions master soothed.

"I'm _him_ , now, I've beco—"

Severus' hands fell to Harry's shoulders and he pushed the boy away slightly and shook him once, hard. "You are not Lord Voldemort! You are _nothing_ like he was, and you never _could_ be! Do _not_ say that again!"

"I butchered him."

"He _needed_ butchering, boy!"

"I'm not a boy!" Harry yelled, struggling out of Snape's grasp.

" _Yes_ , you are. You are a boy who has been asked to do too much, to whom little has been given in return—certainly nothing that would make up for the horrors you've been forced to endure. It wasn't _fair_ , what you've had to do—none of it was—but you _have_ done it, and now you're finished with it. It's _done_ , Harry. Do not give into this idea that Voldemort has made you a monster—that was Albus' job!" Severus yelled, knowing it for truth, and shocked that he had only just realized it.

Harry looked completely stunned by Snape's pronouncement, and his mouth opened and closed several times before he was able to respond. "You never call him that. You always say, 'Lord Voldemort'." It felt like a stupid thing to say, but it was all he could think of in the face of his former professor and tormentor's outrage on his behalf. _My rapist's outrage . . . for me_ , he thought, suddenly nervous to be alone with the man.

Severus noted Harry's behaviorally shift immediately. "I will not hurt you. I would never willingly—" _hurt you_ , he concluded silently. _It's not true. I've hurt you many times, and taken as much pleasure in the act as I did when . . . ._

__"Fuck. _Damn_ it. This is . . . I don't," Harry tried to say, but he was not certain what he wanted to convey, so he stopped trying.

"I don't, either."

The Auror turned his back on Snape and stepped carefully over the bodies in the room of the shack in which they had surprised the Death Eaters and left.

_I killed Draco Malfoy, butchered him, and Severus helped me._ Severus _, who I've always—who_ raped _me—Severus who_ — "FUCK!"

"But at least it was not Ron, Harry," Severus whispered. "I was going to tell you. I knew you'd need to know, to understand, but—"

"But you didn't tell me, did you? Not willingly."

"No, not willingly."

"I . . . can't—are you going to tell Headquarters what I've done?" he asked, abruptly.

"You ridiculous boy!" Severus exclaimed, furious at himself and not Potter, though it was easier to direct his rage outward than inward. "Of _course_ , I'm—"

Harry's unexpected Disapparation stopped his mouth.

"Fuck," Severus muttered, immediately following suit.


	3. Chapter 3

Almost a week later, the Deputy Headmaster of Hogwarts, preparing himself for the start of the next term, entered his office to find Ron Weasley waiting for him.

"I know about France," the young man said without preamble, "and Harry's at the Burrow, in case you were wondering."

Severus took his chair. He knew exactly where Potter was, having gone out of his way to find the boy when he had discovered him nowhere to be found at the school upon his return. "Thank you for the inform—"

"I know that you told him, too. . . . Thanks for that," Ron said, concern evident on his features. "Harry's . . . hurt, Snape, and I think he needs you."

"What _are_ you talking about? I _raped_ the boy. He hardly requires—"

"Shut it, you obstinate fool," Ron said with the casual Gryffindor bravery that had made Severus despise the members of that house for years. "You _will_ see Harry."

"Mr. Weasley—Auror Weasley—while I permitted your justifiable thrashing of some weeks ago, you are not in a position to tell me how to conduct myself. I'll thank you to get. Out. Of. My. Sight."

"Feeling some better, are you? Good. Harry's not. You two need to talk things out, and he's too afraid to make the first move. I'm not going to _permit_ you to save yourself the embarrassment that seeing him will cause you. It _wasn't_ your fault, but you _did_ rape Harry, and he needs you."

"I am the last thing that he needs," Severus whispered, feeling helpless and lost, and wishing again that his sodding, manipulative, all-knowing father-figure had not died, abandoning him to his own free will. _Albus, I don't know what to do_. "Why do you think that Ha—that Potter—needs me?"

"I'll let you work that out on your own, mate," Ron said, surprising Severus by the kindness in his voice. "I know it's hard, this, but it's what you've got. . . . Please, just come and see him, all right?"

It was _not_ "all right," but the Potions master nodded his agreement, and then Weasley left him, too. _Fuck_.

"Fuck," Harry muttered, watching Severus Snape walk stiffly toward him as he sat in the Weasley's back garden puffing out rings of chilled air. _Why is he here_? Ron. _Damn it, Ron_! _I_ told _you not to inter_ —

"Mr. Potter."

"Dep—Sna—Severus," Harry said, tripping over the man's titles and finding his name as he worked through his fear.

He knew it was stupid—it _had_ been the spell, not Ron or Severus—but the memory was still fresh. He dreamt of the rape every night. He could not forget the pain or the pleasure, and now the attack was inextricably tied to his vengeful murder of Draco Malfoy. He was a murderer and a coward, and he did not know what to do or how to feel. And Severus, well, how to feel about him was the most confusing problem of all.

"Yes, please call me that," he said, _And not something worse_.

Severus felt like an idiot, being so very afraid of one slender, delicate, abused boy. Of course, the memory of how Harry had torn Draco Malfoy apart before his eyes was still fresh in his mind, and also the sound of his screams, _Harry's_ screams, as he had . . . . "All right . . . Harry. May I join you?"

"Sure," the boy replied, scooting over to make room on the bench upon which he was sitting.

"Mr. Weasley indicated that you might wish to speak to me."

"That's not what I 'indicated', but since you've made the trip . . . ."

"He feels that you are not doing well."

"Is that what he said, then?"

"Among other things."

Harry blew another breath ring and allowed his mind to blank. It was peaceful, he thought, to think of nothing. 

Severus turned to regard the young man, watching his mouth form the rings of frigid air in fascination. He decided to try it himself, for want of anything better to do, but managed only a few wheezing breaths without any form.

"Takes practice, I guess."

"Apparently."

"You said . . . you said that you enjoyed it."

Severus closed his eyes, but opened them again at once when the image of what he had enjoyed played across his inner-eyelids. "Fuck. . . . Yes, so I did."

"It . . . hurt."

The Potions master found that squeezing his eyes shut blotted out any unwanted images. "I imagine—I know—that it did. I am very sorry to have . . . injured you."

"You raped me."

"Yes."

"And it hurt, but . . . it . . . I . . . _fuck_."

_Please stop saying that_ , Severus thought, pulling a stale packet of fags out of his robes and placing one between his teeth and muttering, " _Incendio_!"

Harry watched the other wizard wandlessly light his cigarette and then reached for the packet before the man could replace it in his robes. He took a fag for himself, said, _"Accio Mr. Weasley's lighter_ ," and reached out a hand to capture the item as it floated up from underneath the bench. In response to Snape's unspoken query, he said, "Molly doesn't like Arthur to smoke in the house."

"Ah. I . . . see," Severus said after exhaling a long line of smoke from his lungs. "I was not aware that you partook of tobacco, Mr. Potter."

"Muggle custom."

"I beg your pardon?"

"To smoke after sex."

"Christ!" Severus spat, tossing his cigarette away with some force.

He made no other move, as he had lost all power to his limbs.

Harry, gathering his courage, remarked, "Actually, I'm sure he thinks she believes him about quitting, but you know that—"

"What. Do. You. Want. From. Me?"

"I was just getting to that. You said—no, you thought at me, didn't you?—that you enjoyed it. I . . . want," Harry stopped, thinking, _To forget. To never feel that trapped again. To have you kiss me and mean it even without the spell_. "To know why."

"Why, Mr. Potter? Why I enjoyed raping you?"

"Yeah."

_Because you're a beautiful boy, and I've desired you for_ —"Because of the spell. Why else?" he asked, folding his arms over his chest to hold his heart inside of it. _No chance, no chance at all that he'd ever_ —

"Oh. I see. I'm . . . sorry for what I said about the smoking. That . . . was cruel. It wasn't you."

"Yes, Mr. Potter, it was I who—"

"I wish you'd call me Harry."

"You do?"

"I do."

"Why?"

"Because I enjoyed it, too," Harry whispered so quietly that Severus could barely hear him.

_He enjoyed it_? "What the hell are you—this is absurd!" the wizard declared, standing and striding across the lawn.

"Please stop."

It was not a request. The boy's tone held a begging quality to it that forcibly reminded Snape of the last time he had heard Potter entreat him, and he froze instantly. He needed to be sick, in spite of the fact that he had not eaten anything in preparation for his meeting. The sound of snow crunching underfoot told him that Harry was approaching, and his mind gave an incoherent shout of terror.

"I did. I'm not lying. Not all of it—not the violence, not even really the fact that I thought it was Ron . . . inside of me, but—and I'm ashamed of it, you know—I did feel . . . ."

"It is sometimes that way, I believe. One's bodily responses—"

" _Don't_. Don't try to rationalize it, please," Harry asked, moving to stand in front of Severus. "I'm confused, hurt, scared—but I know how I felt about you before it happened."

"What?"

"I wanted you. I have for a long time now. Years, really, since Sixth Year."

"That is not possible." _I started fantasizing about_ you _about that time_. _No. It's not possible that_ —"No, Harry, you _are_ confused. I will do whatever I can to . . . ease that confusion, but I will not take advantage of you."

In a competent impersonation of the Potions master, Harry said, "'You have only to apply to Mr. Weasley to learn the truth'," replaying Snape's own words back to him. "Ron told me everything. I know how much you must hate yourself for what you did—what you were made to do—and I don't want that. It's not fair."

"It is what it is, Harry. We cannot change what occurred between us in that clearing."

"True. We can't. But we don't have to let it hurt us more than it already has, Severus."

"What do you want from me?"

"What do you want from _me_?"

_Nothing that I can in good conscience . . . take from you_ , Severus thought, searching Harry's face for some sign of distress, anything to prove to him that the boy was approaching him out of an inappropriate need. Finding nothing, he replied, "I want you to heal."

"Funny," the younger wizard said, smiling slightly, "that's what I want, as well, for you."

"I will never forgive myself for my carelessness."

"I hope that's not true. It was mine, too."

_Yes, it was_.

"I shouldn't have tried to touch the Lovers' Circle. I know that. I blame my—"

"Do not. You could not have foreseen—"

"Yes, I could have. I'm trained for it, badly it seems, but somewhat prepared in any case. I was stupid, and we both got hurt."

At any other time, Severus would have enjoyed taking note of Harry's acceptance of his own recklessness. This moment was not such a time. He reached out to touch the boy's face, cupping it with his right, gloved palm, and was profoundly moved when Harry leaned into his touch.

"Oh, that's . . . . God, Severus, I'm so sorry," he said, reaching out to hold the other wizard.

Severus held him back, and hide his tears in Harry's hair. "You should be wearing a hat. It's freezing out here."

Harry snorted against his chest, and said, "I know that you're crying."

Squeezing the boy tighter, the Potions master made no other response.

"It will be all right, you know."

"Will it?"

"If you let it be."

"Just let it be all right, then. That easy, is it?"

"I forgive you, Severus," Harry told him solemnly, pulling away enough so that he could turn his head up to see the man's face. "I know that it wasn't you."

"I want it to be me," Severus said so quickly that he hardly registered the words, but the emotion he felt in the face of Harry's absolution was so strong that something broke inside of him and slid free, taking it with it his tears—all of them.

Some time later, as Harry cradled him in the snow where they had fallen, he realized that he had lost all feeling in his feet and knees. The young man seemed to understand, and cast a warming spell on them both, moving slowly into a crouch.

"I'd say it was time we got ourselves home, wouldn't you?"

"Home?"

"Hogwarts."

"Harry, I . . . ."

"Shh, let me help you," Harry said, helping Severus to his feet. "I want to go home."

"Then home you shall go."

"May I . . . stay with you tonight?" the boy asked, looking preemptively downcast as if he had already been refused.

"I've wanted that for longer than I will ever admit, but I just can't. It's too soon."

"For sleeping?"

"What?"

"I just want to sleep—next to you—I wouldn't expect—"

Severus stepped away from Harry, pulled the packet of cigarettes out of his robes, and took them to Arthur Weasley's stash of Muggle smoking products, secreting it therein. "Just making sure."

The genuine amusement on the boy's features made him smirk.

"Right. Home. To sleep."

"And _not_ to dream."

"Eventually, I'd like to do that again."

"Dream?"

"Yes."

"I'll . . . see to it that you do."

"Severus, that sounds very much like a romantic sentiment," Harry accused mildly, stepping into the wizard's arms in preparation for Disapparating.

"The cold has clearly affected your hearing."

"My mistake," Harry said.

And then they were standing in the middle of Severus' office.

" _How_?" the Potions master asked, thoroughly shocked.

"Voldemort asked that, too," the younger wizard replied casually, apparently finding his display of power in breaching Hogwarts' anti-Apparation wards nothing remarkable. "I didn't answer him."

"Yes, I believe that you did, Harry. Do you realize—"

"How powerful I am?" the man asked, pausing to yawn before answering. "Yes, I do. You should probably remember it."

The subtle, unexpected threat sent a frisson of fear flying up Severus' spine.

"Oh!" Harry exclaimed, seeing how his words had been taken. "That's not what I—I wasn't threatening you. I only meant that I'm not weak, not fragile—I won't break."

_Won't you_? Severus thought, suddenly furious. "You could have _stopped_ me. You could have stopped _it_."

"Hell, perhaps I could have, but not without hurting someone I loved."

The generosity inherent in such a declaration was completely foreign to Severus, who felt humbled and unworthy in the face of its bearer. His anger draining away, he closed his eyes. "Albus was right."

"About what?"

"About you. He told me that he knew you'd win because you never gave in to your baser nature, not truly, that you always chose to love rather than to hate, that you could control your magic and not become corrupted by it. I laughed at him. I laughed at him and he let me do it. . . . I do not deserve your . . . affection, Harry. I have always elected to hate."

"Open your eyes and look at me."

Severus did so. There was no mistaking the emotion in Harry's eyes.

"It's the truth. It's me. It's what I feel for you. Please let me."

"Please let you. Fuck."

"Not tonight," Harry said, taking the man's hand and pulling him toward him. "Perhaps not for a very long time," he continued, drawing the wizard's arms about his body and leaning into him. "But eventually, you and I will be together. We will. And it will be—"

"Beautiful," Severus whispered into Harry's hair, kissing the man's head and holding him tightly. "You forgive me."

"I do. It wasn't you."

"But this is. This is me, here with you," Severus said wonderingly, bending his head down to lightly press his lips to Harry's.

"And this," the wizard said, breaking the kiss briefly, "is me, here with _you_."

They slept in their clothing under a coverlet sharing breath and plagued by no dreams that night, and in the morning, they woke up intertwined in each other's warm limbs, their fingers meeting their mates behind each other's backs.

"G'morning," Harry murmured, blinking sleepily at Severus.

"Yes."

"I think I'm hungry."

_I know I am_ , the Potions master thought, shifting a little away from the other man.

"'s'all right. It's normal in the morning. I . . . I don't mind," Harry said uneasily.

"Bathroom's the first door on the right in the corridor," Severus said, rolling up to sit. "I need to dress and get to a meeting."

"Hey."

"Yes?"

"Are you . . . are you mad at—"

"Not at you, Harry. At myself. I should not have—"

"It's not going to be that easy, is it?" the Auror asked, reaching out to pick up his glasses from the side table.

"No."

"They—the Weasleys—think I'm upset about Voldemort."

Pulling on his dressing gown, Severus asked, "Are you?"

"I thought I would be, but I'm not. I'm not sorry he's dead. But I can't even look at Ron."

"That must be a strain, inasmuch as you are living in his home."

"He's staying with Hermione at the novitiate, actually."

"Are you in love with Ronald Weasley?" Severus asked, his mouth going dry at the thought.

"What? No. I . . . he was my first, you know, crush, and I love him, certainly. But . . . but, no, not like that. . . . I just can't seem to be around him."

_Then why are you living in his home_? _And what the hell do you think you're doing, Severus_? he asked himself, now that the cold dawn had risen to blot out the warmth of Harry's forgiveness. _It was wrong to accept it. I was wrong to allow this._ Fuck _. I don't know what to do_. Steeling himself against feeling anything, he formulated an appropriate reply to Harry's statement. "That is understandable, Harry. It . . . it will pass."

But it did not pass, Severus noted, as he conducted a meeting of the Order. Harry sat at one end of the table, Ron at the other, and Hermione— _Ever the diplomat_ , Snape thought with no great charity—sat at a distance between them. The mood was cheerful, though strained, for everyone was exhausted. The elation caused by the Dark Lord's death was mitigated by the mop-up that yet needed to occur, and Severus felt guilty as he gave orders and handed out assignments. His last act was to return Harry to duty, something that he would have avoided doing if it had been at all possible. 

In the weeks since their . . . discussion, Severus had kept tabs on the Auror's progress, and Harry seemed to be bearing up well. He was glad of that, truly, but he did not know how to feel about the fact that the boy had not made any attempt to speak with him. He supposed it was for the best. He had kept himself busy with his myriad duties, and kept himself from company. It seemed easier that way.

Ron Weasley, he saw when the meeting concluded, also seemed to be avoiding Harry. It concerned him, but he felt as though he had, in spite of whatever declarations he and Harry had made to one another, no right to interfere in his personal life. _God, but I'm tired_ , he thought, rubbing his eyes. _Tired and spent and useless_.

"Professor Snape?" Hermione asked, interrupting his self-pity.

Snape looked up from his paperwork and saw that he and the witch were the only two people remaining in the room. "Yes?"

Hermione cast a looking charm on the door, and came to sit at the chair closest to him. "I'm sorry to intrude—"

"Then _don't_."

"But when the International Wizarding Cooperation Caucus sent its Aurors to the site in France, they found this," she told him, handing him a blood-stained book that she had pulled out of her robes. "I took it from the other evidence that they had collected and sent to Headquarters because . . . because I _could_ , Sir."

The wizard carefully opened the leather volume and leafed through it until a particular, familiar illustration—annotated in Draco Malfoy's handwriting—called itself to his attention. His heart stopped.

"Apparently, whoever Malfoy got to brew the potions necessary for the . . . Lovers' Circle was incompetent. If he or she had not been . . . ."

"I would have _killed_ him, too."

Hermione said nothing and kept her expression empty.

"You . . . are to be, that is to say, Harry is fortunate in his choice of friends."

"I didn't just do it for him, Sir."

"Miss Granger—"

"Deputy Headmaster," she interrupted, giving him his title so that he would understand the depth of her respect for him, "it didn't just happen to Harry. Only Ron, Harry, you, and I know," she added quickly in response to the hardening of his eyes. "Only the four of us will _ever_ know."

Gratitude and relief washed through the wizard, and he asked, "Did he tell you about what happened—in France?"

"I'm glad you were there for him, Sir."

"Of course."

"Sir, the reason I . . . I bring it up is because you're in charge now, and . . . you need to look after yourself, too."

"I am perfectly capable of—"

"I'm not talking about your competence—that's indisputable—I'm talking about allowing yourself to heal."

"Are you attempting to manage me, Auror Granger?" Snape asked, more acerbically than he had intended.

"Yes, actually."

"I appreciate your foresight in removing this," he said, indicating Malfoy's journal with a jerk of his hand, "but I do not require—"

He stopped speaking when the witch reached for and grasped his hand. "You've refused every honor you've earned, Professor, and you're bearing up well, considering, but if you need anything, anything at all, you have only to apply to me. _Everyone_ needs looking after, even you, especially after what happened."

He pulled his hand free and said, "I do not deserve your pity."

"Oh, it's not pity, not entirely, Sir. It's pragmatism. We've still work to do, and you're our leader. We cannot afford to lose another one, not so soon after the Headmaster."

"What a good little soldier you are."

Hermione sighed. "Well, I'll leave the journal with you. Forgive my concern. I won't trouble you with it again."

Her words should have been caustic, but Severus could feel the concern inherent in them. He sighed as well, and stopped the witch before she could leave by saying, "I appreciate your . . . efforts. Take care of Harry, please."

"Always, Sir."

When she left, Severus felt more lonely than he had ever been.

_I want to see Harry_ , he thought, rising and exiting the room. _I_ need _to see him_.

But the young man was not at the Burrow, nor was he in his chambers at Hogwarts. A perverse impulse made Snape decide to revisit the clearing. He found that he was not the only one similarly moved to go to the scene of the attack.

Harry and Ron were standing amidst the ruins of the Lovers' Circle looking at each other in the frigid air and not speaking. Severus hid himself behind a tree, and waited.

"Are you sure this is what you want, mate?" Ron asked, his voice sounding oddly resolute and strained. "Because if it's what you need, you can have it."

"I shouldn't have asked. I just . . . can't stand not . . . can't keep being afraid of you," Harry almost whispered.

"I'd never hurt you."

"I know that."

"And I want you to stop being afraid."

"Yeah, but—"

"But?"

"You're not . . . gay."

"You aren't, either," Ron said, his voice sounding lightly mocking. "But I _did_ teach you to wank, didn't I?" he continued, desire curling through his voice.

_Fuck_ , Severus thought, feeling his trousers tighten. _I need to leave_.

But he did not leave. Desire rooted him to the spot, jealousy and concern and fear rushing through his veins.

"There wasn't any touching," Harry said, sounding embarrassed. "And with Hermione—"

"There was touching when I sucked you off after Cedric died."

Harry did not respond to _that_ , and Severus strained to hear anything beyond the crunching of snow that reached his ears. Finally, he could not stand not knowing, and he cast an invisibility charm on himself and crept around the tree. What he saw made his knees weak: Ron had drawn Harry into a strong, careful embrace, and was kissing his friend with great tenderness. Harry was quivering—in passion or fear, the Potions master could not discern. _Beautiful_ , he thought, releasing any jealousy in the face of the love being shared before him.

He realized in this moment that he had never truly understood the concept of friendship.

Ron pulled away, leaving Harry gasping and needy and hard. "I won't hurt you. This isn't about that, you understand me?"

"Yes."

The taller wizard removed his robes and spread them over the ground. " _Aesto_!" he cast, and the warmth of his spell rolled over Severus in a comforting wave.

"You're a gentleman, Ron Weasley," Harry said nervously, sliding out of his own robes and handing them to the other wizard.

Ron spread Harry's robes out over his own, and murmured a cushioning charm, as well, before straightening to regard his friend. "You sure?"

"Ye—es, _yes_ , I'm sure."

"I've always liked seeing you blush, Harry," Weasley said, his voice low and seductive.

His words had the pleasing affect of making the more delicate boy flush even more.

_Oh_ , Severus thought, his hands rigid at his sides to prevent them from stroking his own aroused flesh. _I will_ not _pleasure myself while_. . . .

Slowly, Ron raised his arms to Harry, who stepped into them. They held each other for a moment, thighs pressed together, trembling, and then Weasley took possession of Potter's mouth again. The kiss was thorough, loving, and shattering.

"Please," Harry said, breaking it and running his hands up and down Ron's back, pulling him into his body. "Please, I want . . . ."

"Shh, I know what you want, love. I know," Ron told him, stepping back to kneel on the robes and draw Harry down before him. "I'm going to undress you now, all right?"

"Please."

Severus fell to his own knees to hear the need and fear in Harry's voice, but he did not take his eyes off of the young men.

As Ron undressed Harry, he smoothed his palm over ever inch of exposed flesh, ghosting his fingertips over the boy's hardened nipples.

"Oh!"

"Shh, it's all right, Harry," Ron gentled his lover, laying him down and covering the boy's body with his own. "Shh . . . shh . . . shh," he soothed in between placing careful kisses on Harry's face and throat and chest.

Harry bucked his hips up in a silent demand, but Ron ignored him in favor of sitting back and removing his shirt.

_Magnificent_ , Severus thought, remembering how he had felt when he had worn the young man's body. The enchantment he had used was more stable than it would have been had he taken Polyjuice Potion, but it was not taught because it was considered dark magic. He watched Weasley shuck the rest of his kit and thought, _Thank God I studied_.

Naked now, both of them, Ron began to lick Harry's skin in long, slow strokes, laughing gently in response to his friend's moans.

"Oh, Ron—please. _More_."

"You'll have more, love, when I think you're ready for it," Weasley told him, leaning on his right side next to Harry and stroking the boy's trembling body with his left hand in torturously slow movements, "and not before."

_Top. Of course. God_ , Severus thought, his breath coming faster.

When Ron finally laced his fingers lightly around Harry's rigid prick, teasing him with too little pressure, Harry let go a keening groan and pumped hard.

"No, not like that, Harry," the man chastised. "Wait for me. You just take it."

Severus' eyes snapped shut. He did not want to see Harry's terror, which had suddenly become palpable, almost a living thing.

"What? Oh, _fuck_ ," Ron spat.

The Potions master opened his eyes then to see that Ron had removed his hand and was no longer touching Harry at all.

"Merlin, but I'm sorry."

A tear trickled out of Harry's eye and rolled into his hair. "No, don't . . . don't be. It's all right."

"We can stop."

" _No_. I don't want to stop."

"No?"

"No, Ron. Don't stop. Please."

"Right, then. You've had enough teasing," the redhead declared, moving in a smooth rippling of muscled body to lay himself in between Harry's thighs and suck the boy's now half-hard cock into his mouth.

"Fuck!"

Ron did not stop pumping Harry with his mouth, hard, it seemed, as Severus watched the muscles in his jaw work. Up and down, in and out—he suckled the boy's prick relentlessly until Harry screamed his orgasm and the spying wizard fell backward from the force of his own denial.

"Oh! Oh! Oh, _God_. Ron! So . . . so . . . _good_ ," Harry said, his chest heaving from the effort to breathe.

Weasley leisurely lapped at the boy's spent prick, ignoring Harry's painfully erotic whimpers, until he had thoroughly removed every last trace of the explosive climax he had just provided his friend.

"Fuck. No wonder Hermione's marrying you."

Ron chuckled. "Still afraid of me, mate?"

" _No_."

"That's good, so good, Harry, because I want to be inside of you."

"Oh, oh, yeah— _please_."

Without a word, Weasley pushed Harry's thighs apart and pulled up some of the magically cushioned robes to form a mound underneath of his ass before he dipped his head down to tongue the needy hole he had just exposed.

"UNGH! OH! GodRONYES!"

Ron laughed, a muffled sound of unadulterated joy, and continued to lick the tight ring of muscle between Harry's spread cheeks.

Severus could not help himself. His hand moved over his prick in rapid strokes. He could not think of anything but release—he almost found it when Ron pushed the first of his fingers into Harry's body.

"Huh, ungh, oh! _Fuck_ ," the writhing boy moaned.

"Soon, love. Very soon."

On the edge of orgasm, Severus shuddered his release when Weasley pressed the tip of his prick to Harry's entrance, and then he was fucking the boy in a gentle rhythm, a rhythm the Potions master copied upon himself as he pumped his spending cock free of every last bit of fluid his balls could produce. FUCKYES _HARRY_! he screamed in his mind, collapsing.

But Harry was oblivious to anything but his own pleasure. His hips undulated with increasing rapidity as Ron plunged into him, deeper with every thrust, making short, barking grunts every time his balls slapped against his lover's ass.

"I'm . . . I'm . . . Fuck! I'm going to . . . Harry!" he cried, shuddering through a final plunge forward into the other boy and collapsing.

Almost immediately, he pulled out and returned his long, thick fingers to Harry's ass, manipulating them inside of his passage until the dark haired, wizard gasped out a shrieking, climactic cry.

_Yes, definitely a gentleman_. It made Severus' cock twitch to see how Ron pushed Harry toward yet another orgasm before removing his fingers and gathering his friend into a tender, shaking embrace. He he did not stop kissing Harry until the boy was completely still. Both young men then fell into a deep, well-earned sleep.

The Potions master cleaned himself with a spell and then watched over them until they awoke.

"Hey," Ron said, lovingly brushing Harry's fringe out of his eyes. "You okay?"

"Better than. _So_ much better."

"Glad to hear it. God, that was _good_ , Harry."

"Yeah, yeah it was. . . . _Thank_ you."

"You don't have to thank me. I wanted to."

"Does . . . does Herm—"

"Hermione knows everything, love," Ron interrupted, chuckling indulgently as Harry's eyes widened in surprise. "It was her idea."

"Fuck It's just that, that we're usually together for this sort of thing."

Severus was stunned by what Harry's words implied, stunned and . . . excited.

"Don't be upset. It's all right. It's what you needed, and we _both_ wanted you to have it. You know we'd do anything for you, right? _Anything_ , Harry."

"I know. I just hope . . . ."

"What? What do you hope?" Ron asked, pulling Harry closer to him and also pulling the edge of the pile of robes to cover them both.

"That Severus will . . . ."

"Oh, believe me," Ron said with confidence, "he _will_ , Harry. That man loves you. He's _in_ love with you."

_Fuck. That's true. Damn you, Weasley_!

"How do you know?"

"He let me beat the crap out him, is how."

"What?"

"Sorry," Ron said quickly, though Severus did not think he sounded anything like penitent. "I was so angry when I found out—I forgot myself."

"You _hurt_ Severus?"

_You care_?

"Not passed the point of healing, mate, but it took some doing not to kill him. I'm sorry, Harry. I couldn't stop—"

"I understand," the boy replied darkly. "I know _exactly_ how you felt."

"Yeah, I guess you did."

"I'm glad he's dead, Ron."

"Me, too, Harry. She was so . . . after. It hurt to see her. There was nothing I could _do_."

"You _knew_?"

"Not _who_ did it, of course, but, yeah—I knew that Hermione was raped. It about killed me, her cringing from my touch, after."

"And then me."

"Yeah, and then you. I couldn't have you scared of me, mate. I couldn't bear it. Hermione understood. She understands. It's all right."

"He's a snarking bastard, you know, but I love him. So mu—ch," Harry said, his voice breaking as he began to cry.

Ron evinced no surprise at Harry's change of mood, and held him until the wave of emotion had passed. "Shh, love. It's all right."

"It . . . isn't. He hates . . . himself. I'm afraid he won't . . . because of . . . ."

Severus, choking back a tide of anguish, carefully picked himself up off of the ground and moved back to lean against his original hiding place. Now that the rush of lust had passed, he felt helpless. _I don't know what to do_. But he did feel his spell beginning to slip, so he stealthily removed himself farther from the clearing and then Disapparated.


	4. Chapter 4

In the weeks that followed, he kept himself busy, sending Harry and the others out on missions to capture the last of Voldemort's minions and discussing the future curriculum of the school with Headmistress McGonagall. He tried not to think beyond the immediate, but his longing for Harry nagged at him.

Toward the end of term, Minerva called him to her office—she had never taken Albus'—and told him bluntly, "You look like hell, man. We all miss him, but you cannot allow yourself to fall into a decline. It's not healthy."

"What, no Lemon Sherbert to dull the criticism?" he snapped.

It felt good to snap.

"Much better. Not that I enjoy your usual ill-temper, but I have missed it."

"Minerva . . . ."

" _Severus_. . . . I think that I'm going to have to insist that you spend the summer holidays someplace other than the school. You need to take care of yourself, and you'll only work if you remain here."

"You can't do that."

"I can't, true. I _can_ fire you, however, and I shall if you refuse me."

"Such gratitude is overwhelming, Headmistress."

"It isn't gratitude, you idiot. It's concern. Albus would be very disappointed in me, indeed, if I did not look after you."

"Albus is dead."

"Yes, I know, but _you_ are not. I'll thank you to stop behaving as if you were."

_If you knew what I_ was _, you would not be so ready to care_ , Severus thought, asking, "Where do you propose I go?"

"I'll leave that to you. Be sure to tell me when you're ready to begin your vacation," the witch said, dismissing him wordlessly by returning to the scroll she had been reading when he had arrived.

The Potions master went back to his quarters and poured himself a Scotch. He spent the evening staring unseeingly into the fire, sifting through a variety of maudlin memories. 

He fell asleep in his chair. He had not slept in his bed since the night Harry had shared it with him.

The irritated hooting of a large, snowy owl woke him.

_Harry's owl_. "Hedwig, how did you get in here?"

The bird hooted again, shifting from leg to leg on the back of his chair.

Severus turned and removed the small sheet of parchment attached to her leg, pulling an owl treat out of his jacket pocket to offer her. She snatched it greedily and devoured it while waiting.

The note said:

"Dear Severus,

"I've taken a flat in London for the summer. It's completely inappropriate for potion-making, of course, but it is close to the theatre and other places of interest. I thought you might like to visit me there, say the second week of summer? I've a spare room, though I hope you'll, well, I hope you won't want to use it.

"I feel a little awkward inviting you to stay like this, but I'm too nervous to ask you in person. Don't feel obligated, but, if you want to visit, you're welcome to stay as long as you like. I know it must be lonely at Hogwarts in the summer, what with no one around to stalk and take points from."

"Cheeky little bastard," the man murmured, to Hedwig's remonstrative hoot. "I don't mean it, you over-protective, avian—oh, just take another treat and stop staring!"

"Anyway, I hope you'll come. I would very much like it if you did.

"Harry."

_Harry. Of course I'll come_ , the Potions master thought, hastily penning a response and giving it to the owl.

He wanted to call the bird back as soon as she had flown away, for the thought of seeing Potter alone in his home was a daunting prospect. He briefly pondered whether Minerva had taken up Albus' old habit of meddling, but dismissed it as absurd. _I do want to see him. I'll go_.

"Hi," the young man greeted him shyly, some weeks later. "It's . . . good to see you, Severus."

"May I come in?"

"Oh! Sorry," Harry replied, blushing and moving back to allow the man to pass. "Please."

_That wasn't so very difficult_ , Severus thought, though his nerves were rather raw to be in Harry's presence again. And though he hated himself for it, all he could think of was the scene in the clearing, Harry thrusting up to meet Ron's hips, Harry flushed, Harry wanting . . . . He wanted nothing more than to seize him and push him over the rather comfortable-looking chair they passed on their way deeper into the apartment, but such behavior would be worse than inappropriate, he knew. _Only gentleness_ , he told himself, _and only when he asks for it_.

After silently taking tea on the Auror's terrace—an eternity of charged air and weak tea, or so Severus thought—the younger wizard asked, "Mind if I smoke?"

"Is that not premature?"

"What? _Oh_ ," Harry said, blushing at the Potions master's smirk.

Severus bent down to retrieve the packet of cigarettes that Harry had dropped, and looked up to see the boy staring, flushed an open-mouthed, at him. It was too much like the Harry he had seen with Ron, and he gasped out, "God, I want you," without even thinking.

"Then . . . then _take_ me," Harry said, his jaw tight, but his eyes warm and wide and welcoming.

They were in Harry's bedroom, nude and lying next to each other, before Severus registered that he had moved. He rolled the younger man on top of his body, barking out a sharp cry when their erections met, and heedlessly drawing his mouth down to his for a searing, searching kiss.

"No," Severus protested when Harry broke their kiss to slide down his body toward his straining prick. "You shouldn't have to—"

" _Want_ to," the boy answered, greedily drawing Severus' cock into his mouth.

"Ungh, God!"

It was too much to feel, that hot, demanding suction, for the Potions master had been ready since before he knocked on the front door, and he came almost at once. It made him sigh to note that Harry, like Ron, spent so much time cleaning his prick with his tongue.

"Liked that, did you?" the man asked, moving to snuggle against Severus' boneless body.

_This is too fast, but_ . . . . "Oh, yes. Harry . . . ."

"I'm not done, you know."

"Anything. Whatever you want, you can have."

He could feel the grin against his shoulder as Harry sent questing hands down his body toward his thighs, and then dipped between them to finger the impatient ring of muscle he found there.

"God!"

"No, I don't think I'd like the responsibility."

Severus snorted. "Arrogant brat."

" _Your_ 'arrogant brat', Severus," Harry promised, pushing two fingers inside of the man.

_Too much, too soon. You shouldn't—_ "Please."

"Patience. You're tight. Relax. _Accio lubricant_."

The cool, slick sensation of three of Harry's fingers entering him made Severus groan.

"Like that? Like _this_?" Harry teased, scraping his maddening digits over a rough patch of inner skin.

"Fuck!"

"Oh, I _promise_ to do that, Severus. Help me—spread your legs and lift your hips."

_And he's a top, too. That_ is _a surprise_ , the Potions master thought, obeying Harry at once. _And a relief. I don't think I could have_ —"GOD!" he bellowed, as another orgasm crashed through him. "Harry!"

The boy laughed and removed his fingers, shifting his position and readying himself to enter his lover. "Ready?"

"You're . . . going . . . to kill . . . me."

"Doubt that," Harry told him, sliding home. "Yes, yes, yes," he choked out, as the intense pressure of being enveloped by Severus drove all other thoughts from his mind.

Rocking in a delicious, sweating bundle of slowly sliding skin and murmured, heated cries, the two men came at almost the same time only moments later.

"You . . . are . . . evil, Potter."

"Ha—Harry."

"Yes, Harry. My Harry."

"Better. Don't . . . you forget . . . it."

"You really do forgive me, don't you?" Severus asked, his eyes searching Harry's face for any trace of a lie.

"You know that I do. I _do_ ," he assured his lover, wrapping himself around his sated body.

"Thank you, Harry."

"You don't have to sa—ay that," the boy replied, yawning.

"I needed to say it."

"Mmm."

Harry fell asleep, and Severus held him, luxuriating in the feel of the soft, yielding skin against his own. _Harry Potter just made love to me_ , he marveled, wondering at the perversities of the universe. _How the hell did this happen_? Deciding that it did not matter, that he did not care, he allowed himself to drift into slumber.

The next morning was followed by another, and another, and, despite the speed at which he and Harry had seemed to settle into a domestic routine, Severus tried not to worry about it. Their every interaction was marked by a considerate tenderness, and the summer passed in a glorious haze of gentle sex, quiet conversation, disastrous experimental cooking projects, and the occasional visit by Ron and Hermione. But he could tell that Harry was beginning to feel as though something were missing. It frightened him.

_What is it_? he asked himself, watching the young man prepare yet another version of his beef stew—this time, apparently, with blue potatoes—and worrying. _I am not an attractive man_ , he thought, feeling his lack of charm keenly in the wake of the most recent visit by Harry's best friend. _Perhaps he_ does _love Weasley. I could hardly blame him_. Irritably, he said, "You're chopping those too inexactly. They won't cook at the same rate."

Harry gave a rueful chuckle. He knew that something was on his lover's mind. _He's always so testy after Ron visits. I wonder if he's afraid of him, still_? "Then come over here and do it exactly, _Professor_."

Severus rose and took the knife away from Harry, making short, elegant work of the imported Peruvian roots. "There. I do not know that proper preparation will help _that_ ," he said, dismissing the pot of bubbling stew on the stove with a glance, "but I've done my best to ensure they will cook."

"Look, I never said I was a gourmet."

"No. It would have been my pleasure to disabuse you of that notion."

Harry shivered.

_Damn it. Damn it_! "Harry, I'm sorry. I should not have—"

"You're bored, aren't you? You want to leave me."

"What? _No_. Whatever gave you that idea?"

"I should never have told you about Ron. You've been acting oddly ever since."

The "revelation" had been difficult for Severus, who was hard-pressed not to tell his lover that he had already known.

"No, it's _you_ who's been acting odd."

"How?" Harry demanded, though he turned away from Severus and stirred the stew.

"Look. At. Me."

The young man turned, slowly, and warily looked up into the Potions masters' eyes.

"Why have you been . . . distant?"

"'Distant'?"

Severus took a step toward his lover, and Harry, one step back.

"Yes, distant. You . . . you go on at length about Weasley, and—"

"You're jealous? Of Ron? That's ridiculous—and I _haven't_ been distant. We . . . make love every night!" Harry exclaimed, looking down in confusion and blushing.

"Does it bother you, Potter? If so, we need never repeat the process," Severus said coldly, as the fear that he was boring his young lover—the man he _loved_ —ripped its claws inside of his chest.

"You _don't_ bother, do you? _I_ do. I do _everything_."

Severus swallowed, hard. _Fuck. He's_ not _bored. He's just not . . . not content to top all of the time_ , he realized, and his fear edged closer to terror. _I_ can't _. I just can't_! Defensively, he called forth as much invective as he could to lard his tone and said, "Forgive me for not providing you with the requisite amusement you crave, Potter. I see now that this was a mistake," he hissed, striding from the kitchen and then the flat without bothering to collect his belongings.

He was not surprised to find a cloaked and hooded figure standing outside of his door as he returned to Hogwarts and his chambers, but _was_ taken aback when Hermione Granger threw back her hood to stare up at him. _Absurd_ , he thought, _how the perspective of a darkened corridor distorts figures_. But he was powerfully relieved that it was not _Weasley_ come to remonstrate with him.

"I'm here so that Ron wouldn't come," she said without preamble, ignoring his evident fury.

Severus clenched and unclenched his fists, very much wanting to damage something—someone—and remained stonily silent. _Leave. Me. Alone_!

"I realize that you don't appreciate being interfered with, but you understand, don't you, that my fiancé is rather too possessive of Harry than is strictly healthy?"

"You were there, too," Severus ground out.

"What? When?"

"After Cedric Diggory's death."

Hermione flushed. "Oh. He told you about that?"

"You don't like it, either, having your privacy interfered with."

"I expect we're well-passed discretion now, aren't we? May I come in, Sir?"

Without a word, the Potions master unlocked his door and entered his chambers. He would have to deal with Harry's friends sooner or later, and dealing with the witch was easier to contemplate. Hermione followed him, and they stood in his front room, staring at each other.

"Out with it, and then. Get. Out."

"We aren't lovers anymore, you know, not since . . . ."

"Ron _comforted_ Harry in the Forbidden Forest."

"Er, no—I was going to say since _you_."

"I was under the impression that it was just those two occasions."

"It was more than that, actually, always together, and never really, well, not intercourse—well, not between Harry and Ron, anyway."

"I see."

"We've always been very . . . close, Professor, but neither Ron nor I wish to interfere in what you and Harry have together."

"What we have."

"Yes, Sir."

"For Christ's sake, Granger, call me Severus—we've _shared_ him, after all."

"Does that bother you?"

_YES_! "Why shouldn't it? And what does it matter? He's not happy with me, so much is clear."

"You stupid man! Harry's not unhappy with you, he's . . . he's _frustrated_."

"Obviously," Severus said, feeling low and as if he were in some sort of surreal, nightmarish comedy of errors. "I am not . . . attractive enough to suit his needs, clearly."

"Oh, you're plenty attractive, Severus," the witch purred, advancing on him.

"What are you—"

The woman reached up for his hair and jerked his head down toward her mouth, claiming his and kissing him as if she were a demon come to suck his soul from his body.

_Surreal, nightmarish comedy of_ sex, he corrected himself, as every muscle in his body strained to pull him away and push him closer to the woman at once.

Weeks of gentle sex behind him, and a hot, demanding, infuriating body pressed against him, Severus lost all composure and seized Hermione to pull her legs—made difficult, but not impossible, by her robes—around his waist, and he took three rapid strides to the wall, forcing her roughly against it and tearing at her clothing.

She made no move to stop him. In fact, she wrestled with him in an effort to help him strip her off.

"What are you do—"

"Don't think," she ordered, moving to position herself against his thrusting prick.

And then he was inside her, fucking her, pounding into her tight, hot, writhing body without giving a damn if the sounds she was making meant that he was hurting her. He reveled in the heat of her desire and decadence, and it did not take long for either of them to come.

"Fuck, fuck, _fuck_!" Hermione shrieked, her internal spasms massaging Severus toward his completion.

"CHRIST!" he thundered, as his orgasm spilling from him in one long wave of predatory pleasure. _No_! he cried silently, sliding to the floor and pulling the witch down on top of him in an ungainly sprawl. _No, God._ No _. Not_ again. "What . . . kind of . . . monster . . . am I?"

"A brilliant one, I'd say," Hermione whispered, maneuvering herself to lie against his chest, and raising a soothing hand to card his sweat-drenched hair. "Severus, you're _magnificent_."

"Wh—what? What are you saying? I just ra—"

" _Shut it_ , you idiot. You did _not_. I provoked you. I _wanted_ to fuck you, Severus. I like it rough, sometimes. . . . So does _Harry_. Do you understand?"

"These things do _not_ happen to me."

"Well, they _should_. You're _very_ good at them," the witch drawled lazily, running her thumb over his lower lip.

Severus shuddered. "Won't Ron mind?"

"Hmm? Oh, no. Not at all. He suggested it, in fact—said you needed 'an object lesson'."

_An object lesson. Dear God_. "And so you came."

"Yes—and thank you very much for that, by the way. It _had_ to be me, though, didn't it? After Harry and Neville, who _else_ can get under your skin half so easily?"

 "Who, indeed?" Severus asked, his heart beginning to recede to his chest. "But please, Miss Gra—Hermione, never mention Longbottom to me in this . . . context, again."

The witch laughed affectionately.

_Damn Gryffindors and their good intentions_. "I . . . I didn't hurt you?"

"Only in a good way, but I'll take a muscle-relaxant if you've one to spare. My back's not going to thank me very much in the morning."

Sitting up and tucking his prick back into his trousers, Severus replied with as much dignity as he could muster, "I believe that can be arranged."

"So," Hermione asked, when both of them had cleaned themselves up, and they were sitting in front of the Potions master's hearth drinking tea, " _do_ you understand?"

"Harry is desirous of a . . . deviation in our routine," he said, feeling rather embarrassed.

"Rough sex isn't deviant, Severus."

"It seems . . . wrong. Given what occurred . . . ."

"What happened was _terrible_ , and Harry's afraid that it's broken you. He doesn't want that. He wants _you_ —all of you."

"Does he desire to include you and . . . Mr. Weasley in that 'all' as well?"

"You'll have to ask him about that. We wouldn't mind, but . . . we really _don't_ want to interfere in your relationship."

Unbidden, half-choked laughter erupted from the Potions master. "I . . . I don't . . . I don't think . . . that _this_ was . . . what Albus had . . . in mind when . . . he said he wanted . . . me to be happy."

Hermione smiled wickedly at him. "He lived a long time, Professor Dumbledore. I doubt any of this would be a surprise to him."

Recovering quickly at the thought of Albus having sex, Severus said, "Do not mention the Headmaster in this context, _either_."

" _Agreed_."

"I miss him."

"So do we."

"'We'. You speak as though—damn it. I do not . . . this is a most unusual situation."

"You're right, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad one—and Harry, Ron, and I are not joined at the hip."

"Obviously," Severus replied, raising an eyebrow at the woman. _The woman I just took. Gods. How did I . . . how did this—I don't know what to do_.

It was ridiculous, he knew. He had always known what to do. When Lucius Malfoy had introduced him to Lord Voldemort, he had known what to do. When he had realized the devastating mistake he had made in becoming a Death Eater, he had known what to do. When his cover had been blown, finally, and he had been forced to flee the Dark Lord, he had known what to do.

_So why does the prospect of seeing Harry again—after having just shagged one of his dearest friends, one of his lovers—make me feel utterly lost_? _I do not recognize myself. Not at all_.

And that was a strange thing to think, indeed, for the Potions master felt completely awake and alive in this moment. Hermione's object lesson had shaken something loose inside of him. Guilt, he suspected it was. He was glad of it, despite how much at loose ends it left him. In the past few months, he had had more sex than he had in years, lost his old life—not that he particularly minded—and lost Albus. It was a great deal to absorb.

_And then there's Harry_. "Is he very upset? Should I expect an altercation with your . . . boyfriend?"

"Not if I go with you, no. And yes, Harry's rather shaken up."

"Then we'd best not wait," Severus said, suddenly finding the idea of Hermione's "interference" very welcome, indeed.


	5. Chapter 5

"He's asleep," Ron informed them darkly, as they quietly entered the apartment.

"How is he?" Hermione asked, moving across the room to enfold her fiancé in a languid embrace.

Ron chuckled, kissing the witch's head and settling her over his lap. "Someone's been a busy little teacher," he told her, though his eyes—hooded with anger and arousal—were staring at the Potions master.

_Disquieting_ , Severus thought, _to be subject to that gaze_.

"He'll be fine, I think, if you've managed to talk some sense into _him_ ," the wizard replied, directing his response at Hermione. "Tired, then? Go curl up with Harry. The Professor and I need to chat."

It surprised Severus a great deal to see how meekly the woman obeyed Ron. _But then, assertiveness is one thing, and masterdom quite another_.

"Look, we're not friends. I don't even much like you, but you're a good man, I think, under it all, and Harry wants you, so—"

"Why is it," Severus interrupted, taking a chair, "that you feel free to arrange his life? Harry is not a child, not weak. He is perfectly capab—"

"He's my best friend, Severus, and I think you have at least a partial understanding of what he means to me, what he and _Hermione_ mean to me—what we mean to each other."

"I'm an intruder then—or is it I'm just an amusement, someone to discard when I no longer amuse the members of your little harem?"

"Sod it, but you're the worst kind of prat! You know how Harry feels about you—and I can't believe you'd suggest that _anyone_ could tell _either_ of them what to do!"

Severus smirked at that, but then stiffened a bit. He was discomfitted by the discussion and the man with whom he was having it. "You are accusing your intended of being a bossy bottom, is that it? And Harry of being . . . what, exactly?"

"I'm not making any accusations. I just trying to explain. We don't think about it like that. We didn't plan on being . . . so close, it just happened."

"After what the three of you have been through, that is not surprising."

"You were there for a lot of it, too. I can, I _do_ , respect that. Shit, Severus, do you think I have any idea what to do, here? I've loved both of them since . . . well, I don't actually know how long, and now you—and what happened—it's confusing, and I just want us all to be happy. Even you, when it comes right down to it," Ron said, running a hand through his hair in consternation.

It was something of a comfort to find the younger wizard as flustered by their situation as he was, and Severus felt grateful that he would deign to share such a thing with him, after . . . . "Mr. Weasley—"

"Ron."

"Ron. I have no counsel to offer you. I have none to offer myself."

"Well, here's the thing. We're not big planners."

Severus snorted.

The Auror grinned and continued. "We've always just taken things as they've come, you know, and now _you've_ come, so . . . so I guess what I want to know is where does that leave us?"

"'Us'? You and Hermione and Harry?"

"And you. Yeah. I think you've already guessed that we don't have a problem sharing."

"Indeed. Imagine my shock. It is a common Slytherin preconception that Gryffindors are honor-hogging prudes."

"You've met my future wife, yes?" Ron replied in a speaking way.

Severus flushed. "'Met' her, yes, you could say that. I find it difficult to accept that you can share her so freely. Were she mine . . . ."

"I know what you mean. Oh. Were she _yours_. So, you don't share, then?" Ron asked, his brows wrinkling in concern.

"I'm not certain what I do, to be honest. It's never been an option."

"What, no free love among the snakes?"

"I'm certain your house has its own preconceptions. As a student, I saw more study than sex in Slytherin, and that led to . . . . Best just say it led to activities in which I would never have participated willingly later, and leave it at that," Severus told him, leaning back defensively in his chair, lest the other man take it into his head to thrash him again for his vague admission.

But Ron only looked sad. "Merlin," he breathed more than said. "It must have been . . . ."

"Nearly impossible. Were it not for Albus, I would have . . . well, fled, killed myself, done something incredibly stupid and falsely heroic in order to _get_ myself killed. There are many things, in the past, that I would undo if possible."

"I always respected Professor Dumbledore, but I—if I'd known—I'm not sure I could have."

"You're a chess-player, as well, Mr. Weasley."

"Yeah, but my pieces aren't _people_."

"Aren't they?" Severus asked bemusedly, rubbing his fingers along the arm of his chair. "I do not pretend that, given a choice between us, I would be first in Harry's desires."

"You haven't been listening to me, Snape."

"Severus." _It's ridiculous to stand on any sort of ceremony, now_.

"Fine, then. Severus. Harry is in love with _you_ , not me or Hermione. He wants to be with you."

"But your . . . friendship with him is stronger than anything I could offer him."

"It's just different, is all. And you get to have a say in how things go."

"Different."

"Yeah. And you get a say."

"Do I."

"Would you stop doing that? Would I be out here with you instead of in there with them if you didn't?"

The image of the three Gryffindors, naked and laying together, moving together, caused Severus to shift in his chair.

"You like that idea," Ron said, his voice suddenly heavy with an emotion the other wizard knew well. "You like the idea of the three of us together. . . . What about the four of us?"

"The four of us?" Severus asked hoarsely, thinking, _I was just getting used to the idea of sharing_ one _of you_.

Apparently, "these things" _did_ happen to him, _were_ happening to him, as Ron rose from his chair, his arousal evident, and stalked toward the Potions master to kneel and splay his large, hot hands across the man's thighs.

"What are you doing?"

"Trying to decide if I like you."

"You don't—"

"I never do _anything_ I don't want to do, Severus," Ron told him, making short work of buttons of the wizard's trousers.

_Even in a subservient position, he's a top_. "Oh," he gasped, as the man's mouth enveloped his cock, which decided it liked the attention very much indeed. _And as long as I'm engaging in a surreal . . . comedy of sex, I might as well_ —" _yes_ , like that—Christ."

Ron's laughter vibrated along the length of Severus' shaft, teasing him harder, and any further internal protests went unmade. The younger wizard wasted no time; he sucked and hummed and swallowed until Severus' balls were tight against his body, his hands roughly grabbing Ron's hair, and he was shuddering through his release.

_He_ is _a gentleman_ , the man thought, as Ron tucked his spent cock carefully back into his trousers and fastened them up again.

"I _do_ like you," he said, grinning sheepishly.

"Embarrassment does not suit you. . . . Come here."

Pulling Ron into his lap so that his back was leaning against his chest, Severus reached around and unzipped the boy's jeans, freeing his prick and then reaching for his wand.

"What are you—"

"Hush. You'll like this, I promise you," the wizard told him, before bending Ron's arms behind his back to fold them carefully in between their bodies and muttering one of his two favorite spells.

Delightful, wicked it was to feel Ron begin to struggle helplessly against the restraint charm he had cast. Erotic, delicious, to feel how his body quivered as the invisible stroking from a spell of Severus' own, lonely design began to coax the younger man toward orgasm. _But not quickly. Oh, no—I want him to_ need _it before he gains his release_ , he thought, discarding his wand and trailing his fingers over Ron's chest, occasionally tweaking his nipples through the soft cotton of his shirt.

"Ungh, oh, yea—fuck—please, please, _please_ let me . . . co—ome!"

"I think not, Mr. Weasley. I rather enjoy having you at my mercy," Severus told him, biting the boy's neck, licking his ear, ghosting his hands over Ron's sides to suddenly squeeze his thighs and then cupping his balls and shifting up a bit to tease his hole.

"I can't, I can't, I _can't_ take it—please!"

"'Please', what, Mr. Weasley?"

"Letmecomeletme _oh_ ungh _yea_ —yeah, God! It's too . . . too . . . much, Professor. _Please_."

A silken laugh rolled out of Severus from somewhere too deep to name at Ron's use of his title. _Fuck_! _I shouldn't like hearing that half so_ —

"Please!"

With great amusement, and not a little bit a raw lust, Severus hissed, "You want to _come_ , do you? Is _that_ what you'd like to do?"

Ron screamed inchoately as the wizard added his own fingers to the those he knew Ron already felt working his prick, stroking him off at a more rapid pace, hand over hand, until the boy—for holding him thus, Severus could not help but think of him in that way—was struggling to breathe and shriek his release in tandem, whimpering as the spell continued to torment his spending member.

Severus did not end the incantation until his magic had forced another orgasm from his captive.

"Shh," he whispered, caressing Ron's hair after ending the spell. "I think I like you, too, Mr. Weasley," he purred, turning the boy's face toward him and claiming his mouth in a demanding kiss. "Mmm," he murmured, "I like you very much, indeed."

Chest heaving from his exertions, Ron muttered, "Show off."

"Show _me_ ," a bewildered voice asked from the edge of the room.

_Harry_ , Severus thought, starting and clasping Ron more tightly to prevent himself from tossing the young man to the floor.

"Hey, Harry. C'mere," Ron said with remarkable calmness, pushing himself off of the Potions master gently and shakily standing and opening his arms.

Severus watched the two wizards embrace each other, his heart skipping trepidatious beats in time with his rapid breaths.

"I saw. I saw how he touched you."

"Yeah? Did you like it?"

"I _want_ it," Harry said, turning to look at his older lover. "I want you like that, Severus."

"I . . . don't know if I can," the man replied, his earlier doubts coursing through him in a crash of fear. "I don't want to hurt you."

Harry approached him and stood, one hand outstretched. Severus took it, and responded to the young man's tugging by standing up into a hug.

"You didn't hurt Ron."

"God, no," the redhead affirmed. "Best trick _ever_."

"Is that so, Ronald Weasley?"

The three wizards turned to look at Hermione, all of their eyes widening a bit to see that she was wearing nothing more than a hastily wrapped sheet around the generous curves of her body.

"Dear _Playwitch Forum_ ," Ron said, "I never thought this kind of thing would happen to me, but . . . ."

"I don't think _Playwitch Forum_ takes these sorts of letters—girl parts, remember?" the witch asked, shimmying a bit. "Been having fun without us have you?"

"Come on, let's leave these two alone," Ron answered, striding across the room and tugging playfully at Hermione's linen.

She gave a surprised yelp, and dashed off with the wizard in close pursuit.

"Tag," Harry said meaningfully, when a feminine yelp echoed through the flat.

"You're it," Severus replied, bending down to kiss him.

Sometime later, and much shakier, Harry asked, "Can we?"

"I don't know."

"Well, could you maybe just fuck me, then, to start? I want to feel you inside of me, Severus—your prick, not just your fingers or your tongue."

Stalling, the wizard said, "You never seemed to mind shagging me."

Harry leaned his head against his lover's chest and sighed. "I know you're . . . concerned—"

"No, the word you want is frightened. I don't want to hurt you, as I've said, and—"

"You don't want to feel that power again, do you? Except I think, well, maybe you _do_."

" _That power_ "— _the control, the dominance_ , Severus thought, repressing a shudder. "It's too close to the other, to the ra—attack. I _had_ no control. I had none, and I hurt you, and I liked it."

"But you're not under any sort of enchantment, now, and I trust you. I want, I _need_ you to be more dominant, Severus. . . . I don't actually like to top."

"You don't?"

"No. I did that for you. And . . . and I don't always like everything so . . . romantic and restrained, either. I watched you with Ron. I know that you have those same . . . urges. I want you to slake them with _me_."

"What, exactly, do you mean?" the Potions master asked, guiding Harry to the sofa and settling into the cushions with him. "Before we can explore . . . other aspects, I want to know precisely what you will accept and what you won't."

A burst of laughter—and what sounded like wood snapping—erupted from the direction of the bedroom.

"Are they always like that?"

"Well, they _do_ have an audience of sorts."

Severus snorted. "Free love and exhibitionism—no wonder none of you performed better in your scholastic enterprises."

"Um, I don't think that's fair to Hermione."

"Had she not had you lot to deal with, she would have been tops in all of her classes."

Harry yawned, stretched, and buried his head into Severus' armpit, nipping at it playfully through his clothing.

"Teeth. You like teeth, don't you?"

"Sometimes biting's good," Harry said quietly, glancing down at his hands.

And then Severus remembered how Harry had first responded to being bitten. "Fuck. I am an idiot. I'm sor—"

"Don't be. Stop being so sorry that you won't . . . do things."

"I'll try. Why don't you tell me more about what you want."

"I want you to shag me. I, um, I think it'd be nice if you maybe . . . held me down."

"Held you down?"

"Yeah," Harry replied, his voice rough. "Hold me down and fuck me, Severus. Kick my legs apart and watch my face, see how taking your cock makes me feel. God, I'd . . . I'd like that."

A stirring in his groin caused the older man to consider granting his lover's request immediately, but he restrained himself with effort. "What else?"

"I like that thing you did to Ron. Do it to me."

"And?" Severus asked, his breath coming faster.

"I like being fucked against walls and over chairs and in the water and . . . and tied up."

Severus repressed a groan, as the images of taking Harry in those ways rose in his mind. "Ron Weasley did not do any of those things to you."

"N—no," Harry replied hesitatingly, as if he feared Severus' jealousy.

"Don't stop. Answer the question."

"Which one? The one about what I want, or the one you aren't asking?"

"I don't have to know who." _But I'd like to. I'd like to rip his head off—their heads off_ , he thought, not pausing to consider it odd that failed to include Ron in that list of Harry's previous, would-be dead lovers. "Sharing only goes so far with me, apparently," he said diffidently.

"I want you to tell me what to do," Harry responded, returning to their earlier conversational thread. "I want to feel you in control, you taking care of me."

Severus shuddered. He wanted the same thing. It was, after all, his usual method of dealing with the world, its irritants, and his lovers. " _More_."

"Yeah, more. That's what I want. More of you—all of you, in fact," Harry said, his mouth curving into a beguiling smile. "Now seems like a good time."

"You would like an audience, as well?" Severus asked indulgently, stroking his lover's hair and pulling him close, close enough to feel his arousal. "Why am I not surprised?"

"You are taking all this pretty well," Harry admitted, rubbing a teasing hand tantalizingly over his prick.

"Minx."

The affect of his self-stimulation causing his voice to tremble, Harry said, "Whatever you tell me to be, I'll be. Whatever you tell me to do, I'll do—tell me what to _do_ , Severus. Please."

When it came right down to it, there was no way for the Potions master to resist such an impassioned plea, not from his Harry. _My Harry_ , he thought, shifting his position so that he could bestow a possessive kiss on the younger man and also knocking his hand away from his cock. _If this is what he needs . . . I can give it to him_. "I'll tell you what to do," he breathed against Harry's lips, "but I won't—I can't—tell you who to be."

"Deal," Harry whispered, pressing his mouth to Severus', only to whimper when the man pulled away.

"Now, now, Mr. Potter, I believe you just requested that I provide you with . . . direction," Severus said smoothly, purposefully pitching his voice low and promising. "First direction: stand up and strip off. I want to see you," he ordered, leaning back on the sofa to watch. "Not. So. Fast," he said, allowing his tone of command to darken his words.

Harry hesitated, barely, but it was almost enough to make the Potions master rethink his promise, which the young man perceived immediately.

"It's all right. I—"

"Will not speak again until requested to do so. Slowly now, peel off that ridiculous shirt of yours."

Blushing, the young man glanced down at his "Wizards' Knobs" tee shirt, which had been a gift from Fred and George Weasley on his last birthday. _I love that band_ , he thought, starting as Severus barked out another order.

"Hesitate again and it will be punishment, rather than direction, that you will receive."

_He's really taking to it. Not surprising really_ , Harry thought, curling his fingers underneath the hem of his shirt and taking his time about raising it over his head. He thrust his hips out as he did so, wanting his lover to understand how much he desired him and what he was giving. " _Direction_ ," God _yes_.

Severus was both aroused and relieved to find Harry responding so well to the new dynamic between them. He was still nervous, but this feeling decreased as the boy threw his shirt casually to the floor, dropped his arms, and drew his hands up to the waistband of his jeans by way of his inner thighs. _Fuck_ , he thought, seeing the way Harry's hands framed his erect prick before slowly unbuttoning himself. _The little tease_. 

It occurred to him that he need not wait to gratify himself, given the circumstances. An obedient Harry would allow himself to be shagged through the sofa. _But that isn't what he wants. Not to be used—to be loved, cared for,_ taken _—patience, man_! he ordered himself. "Nicely done, Mr. Potter. Now kindly remove the boxer shorts—no, wait—allow me," he said, retrieving his wand and casting, " _Dissolvo_!" and fighting a smile at Harry's reaction to finding his sky blue boxer shorts beading down his thighs.

"Hey! I _liked_ those shorts."

"Mr. Potter, I believe that those utterances of yours constitute speech. What did I tell you about speaking out of turn?" the Potions master asked, standing up and circling the naked man. On his second pass, because Harry had not responded and also because he wanted to, Severus casually smacked the Harry's cock. "I did ask you a question."

"Y—yes, Sir. You said not to speak, Sir."

"Yes, and you _did_ ," the man purred into the nape of Harry's neck, nipping it once for good measure before looking down into his eyes. "Do. Not. Forget. It. Again. Do I make," he said, lightly twisting the head of Harry's cock to punctuate his words, "myself clear?"

"Oh—y—yes, Sir!"

_It isn't fear. It's excitement_. . . . But to be certain, the wizard instructed, "Should you desire to suspend any activity, you have only to say, 'Salazaar', and it will end. Further, I will bespell any . . . impediment to your speaking to remove itself should you _truly_ wish to end anything. Do you understand?"

A flicker of amusement lit Harry's eyes, but he merely responded, "Yes, Sir."

"You will address me as"— _Oh hell, why not_?—'Professor' at all times."

"Yes, Professor."

"Very good, Mr. Potter," the Potions master praised him, thrusting his curled fingers down Harry's shaft before he spread and cupped them to tickle his balls.

The noise that issued from Harry then might have been called a giggle, except he had not taken in sufficient air to support any kind of laugh, and he quickly controlled himself. Rigid, quivering, and wanting, he stared imploringly at Severus and waited.

_Dominance requires clarity, does it not_? "You will, of course, need some correction for you verbal infraction, Mr. Potter, and I believe I know a suitable method of reminding you how to behave," Severus said, stepping back to consider his submissive. "But I want to hear you, so I'll not entirely silence you. _Accio Harry's school tie_!" he cast, and reached out to snatch from the air the red and gold slip of fabric that floated obediently from the bedroom. Handing it to the other man, he said, "Gag yourself—wrap it twice around your head—and secure it tightly."

Harry obeyed him at once.

"Better. Not enough, however," Severus replied, noticing the Fire Ficus in the corner of the room. 

He murmured a spell that stretched the thick fronds of the plant and caused them to wend their way across the floor toward Harry, to climb his body and wind about his legs, his torso, and his arms before stretching toward the ceiling and pulling the boy up on his toes. In response to another whispered direction, one tendril slid around Harry's eyes to blindfold him, and another rose to twine itself around his testicles and bind them fast. His constrained prick visibly pulsed as the blood flowing into it was trapped, and pearly drops of fluid welled up to decorate his regnant head.

Severus thought he might sway as his own blood rushed to his cock. _Patience, patience, patience_ , he repeated, meditating on his mantra until he had himself under more control. "Now then, you said you liked my treatment of Mr. Weasley, did you? I'm glad of it, for I've something equally as amusing in mind for you."

The masturbatory enchantment that he had employed on Ron was a simple manipulation of air and pressure that was meant to anticipate the needs of the person upon whom it was cast; it did not, however, have to be focused on only one part of the body. Severus cast it more liberally, circling Harry to admire the indentations rippling across the boy's calves, his thighs, his back, lips, and nipples—and groaned in sympathy with the frustrated wizard, who struggled helplessly against the relentless, incomplete "friction" of the spell as it drove him mad with want.

"Mmphrmmph! Mmmm _rmphrmphhh_!"

"What was that, Mr. Potter? I don't believe that I understood you," Severus purred, stroking his prick lightly through the damp wool of his trousers. "Do . . . do you . . . perhaps mean to thank me for this lesson? Of course you do. _Clearly_ , despite . . . the enthusiasm you . . . and the members of your house display toward sexual matters," the wizard breathed against his captive's neck, taking a moment to lay a chain of sharp bites up the end of Harry's spine and into his hair before continuing, "no one has ever taught you that your . . . skin deserves just as much attention as your . . . cock," he concluded, circling in front of Harry to smack the boy's distended flesh for good measure.

"Mmrrrrmphrrrmphh!"

Severus laughed. He could not help it, did not wish to help it, and hastily removed his clothing before spelling the tendril over Harry's eyes to fall away. The sheer, helpless longing in his eyes made the man move to fall back upon the sofa, his legs spread, as the heat from Harry's gaze on his cock made it jump needfully.

"I'm . . . I'm going to allow you the freedom to move, Mr. Potter," he said, pointing his wand at the struggling body before him, "but when I do, you will crawl toward me, slowly, ass in the air, high, and come to kneel between my legs. You may not, however, touch me or yourself unless I tell you to do so."

Harry swooned, throwing his head back and keening something incoherent through the tie.

"Perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps—"

"Mmrmph!" the boy uttered fiercely, raising his head so that he could favor the Potions master with a desperate gaze.

"Oh, very well," Severus replied with false casualness, as he ended the _binding_ incantation.

The Fire Ficus lowered the boy slowly to his knees and receded, and Harry immediately assumed the ordered position and crept forward, though it was obvious from the light gasps he was uttering that he was having difficulty focusing on his task as the pressure spell continued to play across his flesh. His sweat caused his straining muscles to glisten with the effort of restraining himself, but he did not violate the terms of his release.

Severus removed the tie and gently rubbed at the redness around Harry's panting mouth. "So beautiful," he murmured, "so wanton, so very obedient." He withdrew his hands and reached again for his wand, transfiguring it into a long, tapering, rubbery plug and holding it up in front of his lover's face. "I think you know what I want you to do with this, don't you, Mr. Potter? You may answer," he said, handing the object to him.

"You want me to pre—prepare—to _prepare_ myself for you with it, Professor."

"How wonderful to see that your powers of observation have not been dulled by your punishment. You may climb up to straddle my lap, using one hand to steady yourself on my shoulder, and one hand to work yourself with my gift."

Harry nearly fell in his haste to obey.

"No—stand. I want a better view," Severus said hoarsely, leaning his head back to watch as the boy did as he was told. "Lick it. Yes, that's right, fellate it before using it on yourse—oh, God, just like that," he said, one hand moving to clamp down around the base of his turgid prick, as Harry drew his tongue in delicious strokes over the plug. "That's enough," he ordered, reaching up to spread the cheeks of his submissive. "Put it in. Twist it in. . . . Yesss, that's right. Good, Mr. Potter."

Harry did not speak, and Severus did not begrudge him the delightful, heady whimpers he made as the toy slowly disappeared into his hole, or the yelp that escaped him as the invisible fingers of the spell pinched his nipples.

Stretching up to knock the boy's hand away once the plug was firmly inserted, Severus instructed Harry to place his hands on the wall before him and not to move, and then he whispered his next surprise.

"Ahh! Oh, errm, ah!"

"Yes, the vibration is _welcome_ , is it not?" Severus asked, reveling in the display of restraint and power that was his lover's shaking legs. "But it's still not enough, is it? No, not enough by half. Tell me what you want, Mr. Potter."

"Professor! God, so many . . . so many _hands_. Please, Professor—I want . . . them on . . . to touch my—oh! Oh, _Professor_ , I _need_ —oh, _let_ me, _please_."

Pulling roughly on the lush tangle of hair at the base of Harry's prick, the wizard said, "Let you _what_ , Mr. Potter?"

"Suck me—fuck me—more! Hands, prick, _anything_ , God, _please_ , Professor!"

"Tsk. That was not a question," Severus replied, running his hands up Harry's calves toward his thighs and digging his thumbs into the tender flesh just under his balls, allowing his knuckles to barely graze the heavy sac above them.

The scent of sex and want was close to overwhelming, but the Potions master needed to drive himself as wild as Harry before he could contemplate what came next, so he murmured for the return of his wand, and the young man cried out a demanding protest.

"Patience, boy. Surely you're not tired of your lesson, yet?"

"N—n—no, Professor," came the strained reply.

"Good," Severus said, altering his wand into a nubbly device with a handle and stuffing it into Harry's ass.

His knees buckled, but he managed to prevent himself from collapsing. "Fffff _ohhh_."

"Yes, your hungry hole likes that, doesn't it?"

"Y—yes, oh, _yes_ , Professor!"

With a twist, Severus found Harry's prostrate, mercilessly sliding it over the spot in rapid strokes and taking the boy's prick into his mouth and the same time, suckling it hard.

"Fuck! Yes, pleaseohGod _yes_ please _please_ please _awFUCK_!"

Severus greedily took every last drop of Harry's release down his throat and then, with a growl, threw his wand aside, pulled the quivering boy down to his knees before flipping the boy over on his belly, raising his hips and spearing himself inside of Harry with an easy thrust. _So good_! "Push back on me, Mr. Potter—ohfucking _Christ_ yes!" he cried, his fingers pressing into Harry's hips hard enough to bruise as he fucked Harry as deeply as he could.

It did not take long for either of them to come.

Giving into the heat and friction and sliding and Harry, Severus bellowed his release.

"ProfessorProfessor _Pro_ FESSOR!" Harry screamed, as another orgasm ripped his mind from him and he fell forward in a sweaty sprawl across the sofa, laughing and crying and begging for the torturous magical hands to stop their ministrations on his sated body.

But Severus, who had fallen atop the boy, was not yet done with him.

"Oh, I _can't_ , I can't take—no more, oh, _oh_ , oh! OH! _OH_!" Harry shrieked, as Severus, shaking himself now, reared up to roll the boy onto his back, grabbed his wrists, and pinned them above his head into the cushions, choking out a command for his spell to work its way inside of Harry's body, to tease its way across the spasming muscle of his entrance, to dip inside his writhing body and massage his prostate, to _bite_ his nipples, to caress his lips, to wrap itself around his cock and fist it toward hardness again while playing with its slippery slit, and to slither and vibrate all over his flushed skin, forcing Harry to convulse in a wave after wave of soul-shattering pleasure.

Severus, using all of his strength to prevent the boy from bucking him off of his inflamed body, helped himself to hardness again with another useful spell, and kicked Harry's legs apart so that he could enter him again, pounding into the clenching flesh around him until, just as he was barking out his own screams of release, with a final frantic keening cry, Harry went utterly limp beneath him.

Sated, spent, and thoroughly redeemed, Severus collapsed on top of the boy and fell instantly to sleep.

When he woke, warm gentle hands, some big and rough, some small and soft, were running themselves all over his body—and Harry's.

Eyes closed yet, he heard Ron gruffly ground out, "Fuck, if I'd known you could do that, I'd've studied more."

"Me, too," Hermione added.

Severus opened his eyes and rolled toward the back of the sofa, pulling Harry's sleeping body next to his, kissing his eyelids, his cheeks, and his lips. He made no protest when he felt the cushions beneath him stretch to widen into a bed, and Ron and Hermione—the witch first, to lay against Harry, and Ron following, to spoon against his fiancée—insinuated themselves into the afterglow.

Harry awoke to the feel of warm bodies and the sound of soft words. He was dazed, disoriented, and so very satisfied. "Wh—what happened—Professor?" he added.

_I'm amazed he remembered_ , Severus thought, smirking. "There's no need for that now, Harry. Lesson's over," he told him, kissing him and gently thrusting his tongue along the boy's own.

"That was sodding _bloody_ brilliant!"

"Yeah, mate. I'm jealous—ow!"

Hermione laughed. "You got yours."

"Mmm, so I _did_."

" _Accio blankets_!" Severus cast, shifting a bit to arrange them over himself and the others. "There will be no foolish canoodling on this sofa while we are trying to sleep," he said, filling his voice with warmth to counteract his tone of mock-severity.

"Yes, Professor," the three Gryffindors sang out obediently.

Severus laughed. "Go to sleep, you greedy little lions. There shall be another lesson in the morning."

Hermione uttered a faint roaring sound to the amusement of the others, and the Potions master decided that he was too tired to consider how it was he found had found himself in a such an . . . unexpected circumstance.

"We shall begin with _you_ , Miss Granger," he promised, drawing Harry toward him so that he could rest his head more fully on his chest.

"And then Ron," the boy murmured, anticipation curling through his voice.

"And we'll end with Harry," Hermione added sleepily.

_Yes, with Harry_ , Severus thought, tenderness flaring through his body at the thought as he drifted off to sleep.

No one dreamed.


End file.
